Favorites design pattern

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Alternate titles: Bookmarks, Starred, Wish List.

Problem summary

The user wants to pick out items for later consumption

Example

▲ At Pinterest.com, you can save "pins" in collection for later consumption.

Usage

Use to enable users to differentiate between large amounts of content items.
Do not use favorites to pick out multiple categories – use tags or categories instead.

More examples

See all 3 example screenshots

Solution

Let users curate a personalized list of favorite items.

Provide a way for users to save items of particular interest for curation or later consumption. Consider allowing tagging or adding descriptions or other metadata to help users recall items later.

Provide a favorite button, juxtaposed to items in a list view or placed within a detail view. The button usually takes the shape of a star or heart. Additionally, consider providing a list of items that the user has favored.

Choosing to favorite content is an on/off choice. This pattern does not allow associating meta-data to the favorite or in other ways categorizing the content.

This pattern focuses on personal organization rather than promoting content. It allows users to either publicly or privately pick out content, anywhere in the product, that they might want to come back to later. Contrary to liking or sharing, which tends to get lost in activity streams, favorites can be used to mark content to read later or which might come in handy again.