A Need for Information and Interface Design Pattern Websites
Perhaps one of the most well-designed and organized compilation of information design patterns, this website created by Christian Behrens is actually part of his master’s thesis.
It’s designed in Flash, which makes it a lot easier to demonstrate the non-static design patterns (e.g. layering) as they change over time. One can also look up the patterns according to different characteristics (e.g. order principle, user goal, graphic class, number of dimensions).
Anybody who wants to learn the variety of ways to present data—it’s a very elegant craft if it’s done right—should go visit this website. Truth is, Christian is not the first to come up with such a site, though he certainly did an awesome job with it.
User interface design is not the same as information design, but in several environments they can go hand in hand. Yahoo! has its own Design Pattern Library, which provides examples using the YUI Library and Yahoo! sites themselves. UI-Patterns.com is another such site. Even Chris Messina used a Flickr photoset as a repository for them (along with other equally useful collections: user flows, applications, etc.). Another personal project is this pattern library by Martijn van Welie.
Clearly, there’s a growing need for websites that would prove useful to information designers and interface designers. Perhaps even other types of designers. The problem is what’s out there right now are difficult to update and not exactly open to external contributions, mostly because they’re personal creations done during someone’s spare time. They’re dead ends. There is no way for other people to come in and suggest new patterns, or even share code, images, videos, and links that can help demonstrate them. There is no growth, no learning, no exchange of ideas. No community.
Design patterns keep people from reinventing the wheel, but all these collections of design patterns are redundancies themselves.
Am I looking for yet another niche social network like tlbox? Or a whole new breed of “inspiration” and “showcase” websites? Hey, if somebody can create a website with over 1 million user-generated colors, why not add another weapon to the designer’s arsenal? Move over, CSS, it’s time for ID and UI (or UX, or UIE, or whatever) to shine!
Related reading:
“It’s designed in Flash, which makes it a lot easier to demonstrate the non-static design patterns (e.g. layering) as they change over time.”
Unfortunately it’s Flash throughout (not just the graphs), so it’s basically unlinkable and unquotable, which is pretty much a no-no for such a reference collection. Otherwise a really cool site.
By Jarkko Laine on May 7, 2008 8:50 am
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By Positive Seasonal Pattern Stocks on Wednesday the 7th of May 2008 - Stock Market Analysis at DeepMarket on May 7, 2008 11:29 pm
Jarko, that’s true. Of course if a bit more effort was spent into the site, it’s possible for it to be linkable.
By Sophia Lucero on May 10, 2008 10:46 am
[...] is another proof that you can’t guess every possible reaction to a design pattern. In this case Aux would rather have wide layouts because it would mean a larger area to present [...]
By Anorexic vs. obese layouts: you can’t please everyone, but you should try | Wisdump on May 13, 2008 12:20 pm
[...] can never run out of places to find inspiration, so I say, bring it on. Like the information design and patterns space, I will keep my eye on this category and keep on wishing for smart new features for [...]
By Web trend alert: image bookmarking sites | Wisdump on June 11, 2008 5:09 am
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By Storyboard your DHTML interactions at Advanced CSS Design Resources - last-child.com on June 30, 2008 9:34 am
I thought this was such an important issue that I built a web application specifically for this purpose, you can see it here: http://patterntap.com.
Its a great collection of over 800 interface design patterns (and growing while maintaing quality). Web designers will use it for insight into what others are doing and can keep tabs on what they like by creating user sets (very similar to lightboxes)
I’d love to know if this is what you had in mind.
By matthew Smith on July 22, 2008 10:28 am
I think you hit it, Matthew. Thanks very much for the share.
By Sophia Lucero on July 22, 2008 10:35 pm
[...] A Need for Information and Interface Design Pattern Websites [...]
By How much does design matter? | AccMan on August 6, 2008 8:42 am