Design Patterns

a comprehensive list of links to design patterns resources. Many great links to academic papers and theoretical information on design patterns.

Although this is no longer maintained, it remains a good resource for IxD design pattern resources. This page contains information about resources related to pattern languages for interaction design (of which user interface design is a subset), and a few links to more general papers that may be of use to interaction designers. I also include some links to organizational design patterns, which I find hard to disentangle from interaction design.

Alexander wrote the seminal book "A Pattern Language" in 1977 that promoted "patterns" as an approach in diverse fields, from architecture to city planning to business to design. Remains influential today.

A seemingly spottily maintained resource but interesting nevertheless. This site seems to promote the process of learning about and creating pattern libraries. You can find links to the following pattern-related resources: People, Events, Patterns, Publications, Tools and Other Resources

A pattern library that focuses on open-source design patterns (whatever those are). Has categories for Content Management, Information Organization, Input Forms, Navigation. A good resource and interesting site to explore if one is interested in a well-documented project.

Accompanies the book "Designing Social Interfaces." This site should interest those who are interested in developing/working with social web applications

a niche patterns library/site that concentrates on collaborative interactions

From the site: The design patterns concept was first made explicit by architect Christopher Alexander in two books: A Pattern Language and The Timeless Way of Building. Design Patterns by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides introduced design patterns to the field of software engineering where they have been much studied. The form of design patterns takes advantage of the natural tendency of expert designers to think in problem-solution pairs. According to Alexander, "each pattern is a three-part rule, which expresses a relation between a certain context, a problem, and a solution." Designing data graphics may be viewed as a task of user-interface design, and the design patterns for data graphics presented here overlap with pattern collections for user-interface design and data visualization. Among these collections are Jenifer Tidwell's UI Patterns and Techniques, Martijn van Welie's Web Design patterns, and recently published books on The Design of Sites, and A Pattern Language for Web Usability. Barry Wilkins has written his doctoral dissertation on Visualization Patterns.

From the site: UIZen is a collection of best of the User Interface designs from around the Web.Site showcases Web Application and Backend designs. Why this site ? When you look for inspiration in good design while building a Web Application , CMS or a back end there are no references which you can look back on for inspiration. There are many CSS/Website galleries but they do not solve this problem as designing back ends is very different from designing Websites. This is where UIZen comes in , by showcases good User Interface Designs from around the web so you next Web Application or back end is not only usable but also good looking. If you know of a site about which you would like to share or have some Ideas for UIZen do get in touch.

a good place to look for web design patterns. Allows you to create your own collections. One can also search designs by color and vote on particular designs.

From the site: UI Patterns is a growing collection of User Interface Design Principles and User Interface Usability Patterns present on web applications and sites today.

This collection of articles is useful in researching specific design problems. User Interface Engineering is a leading research, training, and consulting firm specializing in web site and product usability. Jared M. Spool founded the company back in 1988 and has built UIE into the largest organization of its kind in the world. With our in-depth research findings based on user observation, we empower development teams to create usable web sites that increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Elements of Design is a different type of web design showcase focusing on specific aspects of web design. The site focuses on particular components of design such as login forms and site navigation.

Description from the site: This site is an outgrowth of my Master's thesis, completed in December, 2002 at the University of Washington. My interest in continuing my research lead me to launch this site in September of 2003. I also felt that the data I had collected (and plan to collect) would be more accessible in a web-based presentation. I encourage those interested in conducting related research to also refer to my thesis, which can be downloaded at my personal web site www.hpadkisson.com. The data presented on this site are intended to inform design decisions, not dictate them. Common practice does not necessarily equate with best practice-and the relationship between consistency and usability on the Web is remains a lightly researched area. I wrote more on this topic in an article for Boxes and Arrows: Examining the Role of De Facto Standards on the Web. At this time the data on the site are limited to e-commerce, which was the focus of my master's thesis. As one reader has pointed out, there is so much more to the Web. I do hope to eventually expand the data collection beyond e-commerce into other site genres. A goal of this site is to encourage and highlight related empirical research. You'll find throughout the site links to related studies. If you find I've overlooked a relevant study, please suggest a study for inclusion.

This site centers around a Pattern Browser. An interesting take on a pattern browser from the Interface Design Team of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam. This browser provides a rather more technical and interesting set of filters and I like it a lot.

A weblog that take the approach of examining a particular user interaction pattern with the aim of cataloging and exploring that subject. Buttons and web forms are typical examples that are debated here

Formerly called the UI Pattern Factory... From the site: "Patternry is a resource for everyone who needs to design or develop user interfaces. It is a collection of Web design patterns which helps people solve common design problems when designing interfaces. Soon it will also be a community where everyone can share, create, and collaborate on design patterns. We are still in beta, so be patient with us."

A site maintained by Experience Designer Jason Robb. UI Scraps catalogs, good, bad, and notable interface designs. This site features critiques of submission forms and praises for other good designs.

A gallery of common web page components such as navigation, grid layouts. This site features more than 30 categories and users are allowed to rate each design featured in the gallery so that they can see what others think about each concept or idea

A nice, comprehensive overview of Design Patterns from 2009 from Smashing Magazine.