Interaction design pattern
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In interaction design, an interaction design (ID) pattern is a general repeatable solution to a commonly-occurring usability problem in interface design or interaction design. An ID pattern usually consists of the following elements:
- Problem: Problems are related to the usage of the system and are relevant to the user or any other stakeholder that is interested in usability.
- Use when: a situation (in terms of the tasks, the users and the context of use) giving rise to a usability problem. This section extends the plain problem-solutions dichotomy by describing situations in which the problems occur.
- Principle: a pattern is usually based on one or more ergonomic principles such as user guidance, or consistency, or error management.
- Solution: a proven solution to the problem. A solution describes only the core of the problem, and the designer has the freedom to implement it in many ways. Other patterns may be needed to solve sub problems.
- Why: How and why the pattern actually works, including an analysis of how it may affect certain attributes of usability. The rationale (why) should provide a reasonable argument for the specified impact on usability when the pattern is applied. The why should describe which usability aspects should have been improved or which other aspects might suffer.
- Examples: Each example shows how the pattern has been successfully applied in a real life system. This is often accompanied by a screenshot and a short description.
Aliases
As numerous people have worked on the patterns in Human Computer Interaction in recent years, the concept of an ID patterns is known under different names; e.g. interaction patterns, user interface (UI) patterns, usability patterns, web design patterns, and workflow patterns. These patterns share a lot of similarities and basically all provide solutions to usability problems in interaction and interface design. Some patterns are known under different names (or even the same name) in different pattern collections.ID patterns can be described using PLML (Pattern Language Markup Language).
History
Patterns originated as an architectural concept by Christopher Alexander. Patterns and pattern languages for describing patterns are ways to describe best practices, explain good designs, and capture experience in a way that it is possible for others to reuse this experience. Design pattern (computer science) are extensively used by software engineers for the actual design process as well as for communicating a design to others. Software patterns first became popular with the object-oriented Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software book. Since then a pattern community has emerged that specifies patterns for all sorts of problem domains: architectural styles, object oriented frameworks, domain models of businesses and interaction patterns.The first substantial set of interaction design patterns was the Common Ground pattern collection, developed by Jenifer Tidwell. Many other collections and languages followed, such as Martijn van Welie's Interaction Design Patterns. Several books have recently been published about Web and UI design patterns, including:
- A Pattern Approach to Interaction Design, by Jan Borchers
- A Pattern Language for Web Usability, by Ian Graham
- The Design of Sites: Patterns, Principles, and Processes for Crafting a Customer-Centered Web Experience, by Douglas K. van Duyne, James A. Landay, and Jason I. Hong
- Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design, by Jenifer Tidwell
See also
- Design patterns
- Interactivity
- Interaction
- Information architecture
- Interface design
- User-centered design
- Usability
- Gameplay
External links
- [Yahoo! Design Pattern Library]
- [Designing Interfaces]
- [J. Tidwell, Common Ground]
- [van Welie's patterns for Web, GUI, and mobile design]
- [PLML: Pattern Language Markup Language]
- [Interaction Design Patterns in Games]
- [Architecture Sensitive Usability Patterns]
- [Lancaster University, PoInter: Patterns of INTERaction collection]
- [The Interaction Design Patterns Page maintained by Tom Erickson]
- [hcipatterns.org]
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