The UI Pattern Factory Blog

News and thoughts from the assembly line.

Expectations for 2010

Published

on January 28, 2010

. Comments

We are dedicating 2010 to developing a better and improved service for our users. The work towards this goal started already back in 2009, so lets take a quick look to the past.

Highlights of 2009

Finding a vision

We finally figured the answer to what we want UI Pattern Factory to be. All a long we had known that we wanted it to be more than just an other design pattern library. Figuring the right concept that we believe in took us a long time. We wanted to create something new which would also provide genuine value to our users. We set our goal to creating something so good that it would be worth paying. Of course, the motivation to create a commercial service also came from the desire to be able (at least if we succeed) to make our living doing what we really love. What our vision exactly is will have to remain secret for a while.

Matti joined our team

To create the service we had visioned we needed someone to help us make it reality. Matti Varjokallio was that guy. Selling him our vision and luring him out of his previous job took some time and a few barrels of beer, but at the end we (or the beer?) gave him such a headache he had no choice but to say yes. Matti is fluent in Finnish, English, German and Python. Besides programming Matti spends his time in different sports and playing chess. He has an ELO rating of 1670 (don’t ask me…) For us his rating is: invaluable.

Matti coding at our new office

UI Pattern Factory got incorporated

We have officially been a start-up since October 2009. Uipatternfactory.com is now officially a domain of the Pattern Factory Oy (Ltd.). All three of us (Janne, Matti, Johannes) have a share of the company. We are running on a shoestring budget as we are a bootstrapped company. Therefore we also work part time at our regular day jobs.

We have an office

To be able to work efficiently we rented a office. Our nice office room of 22,5 m2 is located on Albertinkatu 27 B, at the heart of Helsinki. We have three desks (all different colour of course), three computers, few empty cans of energy drink and that’s about it. Real nice and comfy, so to say!

Plans for 2010

This year will be a busy one for us. So lets have a look what we have in mind:

Pattern Library 2.0

We are planning to release a totally new version of the design pattern library. We will change the WordPress based pattern library site to a new, Django based site built from the scratch. This allows us to offer some completely new ways to use our site and patterns. We will do the release in few stages adding more features and content in every release. Some new features to come in the following months are:

Better pattern search functionality
New mini pattern concept for easier and wrapped up presentation
Ability for users to write and add their own patterns to the the library
Ability to contribute to patterns created by others

Lots of new patterns

We are just not adding features to the pattern library tool, but also new content in the form of design patterns. We are currently working on to incorporate patterns published in some other libraries to our library. The plan is to fit these patterns to our own format and also to revamp them as needed. We will only use patterns published under Creative Commons license and continue using the same license. We aim to gather all the best patterns to one place and create a library that is as complete as possible.

Introducing commercial features

Being a company means we want to earn some money at least in some point. We are working on a new service concept, but we are not yet ready to publish what it exactly will be. However, we want to state clearly that all our patterns will be free to use also in the future. So even if you don’t feel like paying anything, we will offer you a very improved site and service.

We will keep you updated as everything written here unfolds in the coming months.

New Pattern: Overlay

Published

Janne Lammi

on October 10, 2009

in News & Updates

. Comments

We added a new pattern to out library today, called “Overlay”. Check it out and let us know your thoughts on this pattern. Also have a look at the pattern gallery and feel free to add your examples.

New Pattern: Data Table

Published

Janne Lammi

on July 22, 2009

in News & Updates

. Comments

Things have been quiet for some time in our pattern library, but that is just because we have been working hard in the background. There will be some changes in the library tool later this year, and some news we can’t yet publish.

But today we published a new pattern, Data Table, which is a very common design pattern and part of our “Basic UI design patterns set” we are working on. More basic patterns will appear in the library in the next few months, and we’d love to hear what patterns you think should be included in that set. To suggest new patterns, use the comments section of this blog post or go to our Pattern Ideas Forum.

Let us know what you think about our newest pattern, and add your pattern examples to our Flickr group. Thanks!

We’ve Been Featured in a Book!

Published

Janne Lammi

on April 30, 2009

in News & Updates

. Comments

Pawan Vora recently wrote a book of patterns for Web application designers titled “Web Application Design Patterns”. In his book he has documented more than 100 patterns, ranging from form design to social application patterns. See the book in Amazon for more information.

In the last chapter of the book a pattern library is presented in a design pattern format and its core elements are identified, as well as best practices for developing one are provided. And yes, that is the chapter where UI Pattern Factory is being written about (Woohoo!).

New Pattern: Refining Search

Published

Janne Lammi

on March 28, 2009

in News & Updates

. Comments

Our newest pattern is called “Refining Search”, also known as “Faceted Search”. Refining search allows user to refine search results in real time using multiple filters in any order until the desired items are found.

More patterns coming soon.

Focus on Web-Based Business Application Patterns

Published

Janne Lammi

on March 17, 2009

in News & Updates

. Comments

When Janne created this UI design pattern library, he started filling it with all kinds of Web design patterns he found useful and interesting, without clear focus or goal. But now when the number of patterns in the library is growing, we need to think more carefully what patterns to write next to make the library useful as a whole. We want to make our library a comprehensive resource, but focus on Web applications in general is too broad and needs to be narrowed.

So, few months ago we started to think through a number of possible themes, and finally decided to narrow our focus to Web based business applications. By “business applications” we mean apps that companies use to increase their productivity. The focus area is still rather broad and most of the patterns are applicable to all kinds of Web applications (like Content Groups pattern we recently wrote), but narrow enough to allow us to identify and fill the gaps in the library.

We choose business applications for two main reasons:

The most important reason is that business oriented applications are the most familiar to Janne, who has six years of work experience with business software design and implementation.
Another reason is that the importance of usability in business software is increasing, but people who design them are are often other than experienced user interface designers. Instead, they are developers, software architects, business analysts, or project managers who don’t have adequate UI design skills. This is a problem especially in small and middle-sized software development organization that don’t have resources to hire dedicated persons for UI design work, and we believe UI design patterns can help them a lot.

In addition to business application focus, we will concentrate on patterns that people need during early design phases - when the UI is being sketched on a whiteboard or paper. This means will write more high-level, fairly basic UI design patterns rather than detailed or interaction related patterns. We have some exciting plans related to that, but more about it later…

P.S. There will be also other themes in the future. Business applications will be our first theme, but after we have made our library comprehensive in that theme, we will move on to something else.

Updated: Same-Page Feedback Messages

Published

Janne Lammi

on March 4, 2009

in News & Updates

. Comments

We’ve been adding new patterns to the library every second week, but to keep the library fresh means also that exisiting patterns needs to be kept up-to-date. Therefore we just rewrote one of our patterns, Same-Page Feedback Messages, and added a bunch of new examples to the pattern gallery.

As always, we’d be more than happy to hear your thoughts on this pattern.

New Patterns: Information Dashboard & Content Groups

Published

Janne Lammi

on February 5, 2009

in News & Updates

. Comments

We published two new patterns: “Information Dashboard” and “Content Groups”. Feedback is very welcome! These patterns are part of our new scope, but more about that topic soon.

Next pattern to be written is “Refining Search”, which will appear in the library in two weeks.

New Pattern: Input Controls

Published

Janne Lammi

on January 5, 2009

in News & Updates

. Comments

We just published a new pattern “Input Controls” which describes basic input controls in Web applications. The “Why” section of the pattern differs from other pattern in the library, listing advantages and disadvantages for different controls, making it easier to make a decision which control to use. We might use the same approach in the future with other patterns too, depending on the feedback. So, check it out and tell us what yhou think.

We have a blog!

Published

johannes

on January 3, 2009

in News & Updates

. Comments

The UI Pattern Factory website has been in a sleep mode for a while, but that is going to change. We have some big plans coming up, and although we haven’t been actively updating the website, we have been working hard on this project under the surface. The evolution of the UIPF to more useful and user-oriented tool will be done in steps. The first step is to start introducing a new pattern every second week. The second step is to start this blog where we will share our plans for the future, and we hope it also helps us the get feedback from you to make UIPF better.

Oh, one more thing. The size of our “team” behind the UIPF has doubled. Or actually, we just became a team. So, from now on the guys behind the UIPF are Janne Lammi, who originally created this site, and me, Johannes Hocksell. While Janne develops the UIPF website and writes new patterns, I will work more in the background. For more info about us check “The Team”-section on the “What?”-page.

-Johannes and Janne