Design Patterns are usually associated with hardcore technical types obsessed with the portability of their code. Patterns are essentially a library of common solutions to common problems, the idea being that a software architect can distil applications down to a series of standard packages of reusable code. A major strength of the technique is the provision of a common terminology that every member of the team is comfortable with
These techniques can apply to interface design as well, and interface designers like Jenifer Tidwell and Martijn van Welie have published libraries of UI patterns on the web
One of the major challenges that faces any team of web application designers is working with the client to specify the interface and ensure the client’s requirements are met. Various techniques exist to help designers and clients work together – wireframes, functional flows, static prototypes, look and feel mockups, etc., but you often find that no matter how thorough the specification process, certain issues only come to light when the final product is available for testing
This is where a library of UI patterns could come in useful. If the client is familiar with a common set of interface patterns, they can more easily define their requirements in visual terms using existing examples of the behaviour they are after. The skilled designer will then be able to take these requirements and work with their existing codebase to build the application. Architects are also happy as they can use their existing codebase of common patterns as a foundation, and concentrate on the more interesting aspects of the project.
Many web teams already have an archive of common chunks of code that they reuse regularly, but by linking this directly with UI elements that clients can understand and formalising a library, perhaps future web project specification phases will become more successful and bear more relation to the final product.