A few of us went to see Christain Crumlish talk about the Yahoo! Design Pattern library yesterday after work – It was an interesting evening with much to chew on. I wanted to talk briefly about it and what I took from it.

Representing “Social”

Representing a landscape as complex as “social” is a very difficult task. Tools to do so can seem never ending (by the very nature of social) but the principles and patterns which Christian Crumlish described felt comprehensive, rational and most importantly tangible.

He set himself up well during his introduction – in defense of Design Patterns (which he said came under heavy criticism within Architecture) he made the point that at Yahoo he was curating a design pattern, not, The Design Pattern.

I felt the body of patterns worked well – treating a set of examples as illustrations of thoughts and ideas was a smart way of (almost) encapsulating a subject which I have always found notoriously difficult to explain. It also made the body of work much more than a just a tool for “designers”.

Principles and Patterns

I wont go through the all that was said, I wouldn’t do it justice – but I recommend you peruse the Design Pattern Library read about the principles and the patterns themselves or read Erin Malone’s presentation from IxDA which is very close to what was presented anyway.

The Library consists of 5 Prinicples:

• Talk Like a Person
• Don’t Break Email!
• Be Open
• Learn from Games
• The Ethical Dimension

I wont begin to list the 96 patters but they seemed to cover a hell of a lot – something which acted to remind me just how complex and difficult designing comprehensive social applications are.

Prioritising Design and the I-word

In retrospect I have found myself thinking about much more than interface design. Given the talk was about about a library of interface design examples this seems odd – but I guess a library doesn’t make you think about books.

1) When asked if the use of design pattern librarys stifled innovation Christain quipped that “a good designer should have all of these in their head“. I think this is an important point which can be taken further.

I hope that as a non-designer I mentally reference these design principles with each decision I make – if I don’t, i’m not doing my job correctly
Using this material to educate those outside the web-community (eg Clients) will help them to understand the design considerations underpinning successful products. In turn, it should be easier to either support a business requirement or question if it is detrimental to the long term design of a product (or service).

Placing design principles and considerations on a par with business considerations early on in the life of a project will only improve your project. In fact, letting design consideration lead your business can find revenue where you had not predicted it – react to your audiences desires rather than finding an audience that fits with your design.

2) When discussing design patterns in geolocation, mobile interfaces and gestural interfaces Christian responded by noting that these were areas where patterns were yet to become clear or where patterns had yet to be collated.

This helped me understand the much maligned term, “Innovation”- by his definition these were areas where design trends were difficult to come by – areas of growth in design, but not necessarily novelty

This seems a much more tangible phrase and concept than “innovation” – supporting people who design products and services where there are few examples and trends is much more understandable to me than the dreaded I-word.

In seeking to do new things and be “innovative” there is an even greater need for more investment in the design process. I always knew this at heart but now feel I have a tangible reason for it – there just are not the examples to copy how to do it!

All in all it was a interesting evening – I had much more to chew on that a set of design ideas to click and drop into projects.