[Part 7 of a series on Patterns. Working with a Pattern Library.] Patterns, Components, and Code, Oh My! Ok, so now you have a pattern library. Now what? Ultimately, you need to be able to work with this content on a daily basis. The patterns, in and of themselves, give you the tools to understand [...]
[Part 6 of a series on Patterns. Organizing the pattern library for a design team.] Organizing a pattern library is like organizing any other large body of content. You need to look at the content you have as well as the content to be developed and come up with a primary and a potentially a [...]
[Part 5 of a series on Patterns. Developing a quality system.] Once you have a collection of patterns they should be reviewed by the team or designated representatives. A review process is good for catching missing issues or considerations as well as refining the problem statement and context of use. Additionally, the review process helps [...]
[author's note: This is part one in a multi-part series. Based on material I developed with Christian Crumlish and Lucas Pettinati for a workshop we gave at the IA Summit in 2008 and 2009 and at Interactions 2009, I have expanded this information into a multi-day workshop and this series of articles. Once the series [...]
In writing our book, Designing Social Interfaces, we challenged ourselves to creating a social pattern language, much like Christopher Alexander created a pattern language for building and architecture. We have followed the evolution of design patterns but looking back into A Pattern Language, there are some concepts that Alexander talks about that are directly applicable [...]
I have been presenting the material from our book over the last several months and have been asked questions about some of the anti-patterns and how we avoid or solve them. Most recently at Web 2.0, I was talking with a bunch of smart, interesting people and a few things have bubbled up that I [...]
[singlepic id=29 w=320 h=240 float=left]One of the things we have been doing since way before we started the book, was to visualize the social ecosystem and the inter-relationships between categories, patterns and principles. Back in 2007, when I was still at Yahoo! and Bryce Glass was on my team, we developed a diagram for our [...]
Our talk at Idea09 touched on a few key steps for building social experiences, a few of the most salient principles and a handful of the anti-patterns covered in the book. A 40 minute talk barely taps into the breadth of content from the book, but it’s a nice teaser. Designing Social Interfaces: 5 steps, [...]
Many of the patterns in Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language offer advice and food for thought when designing the social experience. Pattern #149 in A Pattern Language is “Reception Welcomes You” which I find quite relevant when thinking about designing for the web. It is applicable for the social experience but is also appropriate for [...]
My coauthor for the book, Christian Crumlish, has recently published an article in the ASIST Bulletin in which he shares some of the principles we talk about in the new book. Additionally he fleshes out the framework we cover and talks about the kinds of patterns found in each node of the architecture. It’s a [...]
A few weeks ago, I attended the UX Book club event here in San Francisco. The book in discussion was A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander. It was a lively discussion and drifted back and forth between architecture, the Yahoo! Pattern Library, our Social Patterns collection, patterns in interaction design and the motivations behind that [...]
As Christian and I start to get deeper into our book, we have discussed between ourselves and our editor, the idea of opening the process up to those interested in Social Patterns. We have created a wiki at designingsocialinterfaces.com and are starting to post the patterns we are writing as we work through the chapters. [...]
apologies for how quiet I have been for the last several weeks. I have been deep in the thick of writing and boy is it fun. The first chapter of our book, Designing Social Interfaces: Principles, Patterns and Best Practices sets some context and a bit of history – which if you know me at [...]
Today, forums launched as part of the Yahoo! Developer Network. It’s a soft, preview launch so there are very few boards up while all the kinks are being worked out. BUT the first boards launched are two boards for discussions around the Pattern Library – one general board – and one for Pattern Authors. Eventually, [...]
I am pleased to announce that we recently released a set of 9 Reputation Patterns over on the Yahoo! Pattern Library. Written primarily by Bryce Glass, these patterns are many months in the making and reflect the work of Bryce, product manager Yvonne French, and much guidance from our former community guru Randy Farmer as [...]
