About
UI-Patterns.com is the work of Anders Toxboe – a Danish web developer seeking to categorize what has before seemed like ad hoc approaches to developing web applications.
By not only listing different ways of solving common design problems, but also rationalizing about how, when, and why such solutions should be used, it is the goal to create a tool that will help end feature debates, get a clear understanding of why we’re doing what we’re doing, and why we’re not doing what we’re not doing.
UI-Patterns.com is an attempt to over time create a library of such solutions to common problems. It is a personal project, but is extremely open to contributions.
User Interface Design Patterns
It has long been common practice in software design to use libraries of
Collections of software design patterns are standard reference points for the experienced programmer. But why not for the experienced User Interface (UI) designer? This website seeks to better the situation for the UI designer, who struggles with the same problems as many other UI designers have struggled with before him.
UI-Patterns.com are not the first to create a UI design library. A popular design library is the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library. While very useful, it is far from complete. The purpose of this site is over time to fill some of the gaps – especially by providing code examples as to how how the different patterns can be implemented.
Get in touch!
If you have ideas on how UI-Patterns.com can be improved, want to contribute, want to write hatemail or praisemail, then you’re more than welcome to write to info (at) ui-patterns (dot) com.
This document was last updated at June 22, 2008
Piece of shit. You claim to give UI patterns, and then you talk ONLY about web apps???
Nicely done, Anders! As a designer/developer of desktop-bound apps, and as someone who has studied design in depth, I will counter the previous comment by claiming that any good designer can see value even if some UI patterns are specific to the web.
Sometimes all a designer needs is an inspiration from a few sentences and screenshots. A site like yours makes this possible, and I consider the site a valuable resource.
For a general review of design, I recommend the book Universal Principles of Design by Lidwell, Holden, and Butler.
I love this site. Programmers often have a hard time understanding that their skills in UI stink and the users of there sites would agree. What good is your site if it is unclear how use it?
Good points. One thing though, you need to spell check your copy. Even at the top of your home page, “It has long been common practise to use recurring[...]”—“practice” is misspelled.
Nicolas simply proves that this is a useful site. We have one set of eyes and we see the whole world through them. All UIs should conform to our views of the world. Intuition, comfort, whatever skill we use to navigate an application, we can only use if the application is navigable. For most people it is comfort. Developers may use intuition but only because we use this stuff every day. Which is one reason I got out of development – it is full of people who know that their way is the only way. Tosh. Utter tosh. Since when has a web site not been an application? Think about it – an ATM is an application, but it behaves a lot like a web site. a kettle is an application but doesn’t behave anything like a web site. Amazon is a web site but behaves like an application. And they all require a UI. Good on you Anders, I look forward to seeing your site flourish – I’m dropping a bookmark here. Thanks.
Thank you for the inspiration.
Hi Anders. Great to see this site and it does fill some gaps already. Keep up the good work as sites like this and welie.com are too few and far between. Cheers
There is no ‘visit’ function on the links of the UI Design patterns list. How do i know witch one i have seen?
Robert: Good point – I just added more correct link styling to cope for this.
Good site. No matter what anyone thinks, I appreciate your efforts.
P.S. RSS feeds would be nice :)
I like this site. ¡Congratulations!
How can someone contribute?
Snx for you job! It has very much helped me!
Practise is a variant of practice…
REF: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/practise
The Checker 01 Feb 21:41 said
“Good points. One thing though, you need to spell check your copy. Even at the top of your home page, “It has long been common practise to use recurring[...]â€?—“practiceâ€? is misspelled.”
Site is great but RSS feeds are necessary.
Kevin: Try this RSS feed: http://ui-patterns.com/rss
Great site! Very useful!