Collection: Design Patterns

For those of us who daily design and build the things that work on the web, a great deal of our time is spent seeing how other folks do things, whether we like to admit it or not. A lot of the great ideas have already been done (not all, but a lot), so it often helps to take a look at those ideas, evaluate what you like and what you don’t like, evaluate what you need and what you don’t need, and determine what nuggets of beautiful design wisdom you can glean for your own project.

I know I’ve spent many hours surfing the web (billed as “competitive analysis”), looking at who does what well. So I ran across factoryjoe’s Flickr account where he has compiled a valuable collection of interface and design elements found across the web. You could also call these elements “design patterns”. So next time you’re mulling over the perfect tagging interface – take a look at ways other folks have blazed that trail.

I do like the mantra factoryjoe has included with this collection – “Reuse, recycle, but don’t reinvent the wheel unless necessary.” Thanks factoryjoe. You’ve just made life a little bit more fun for me, in a disturbingly geeky way.