UC Berkeley User Interface Design Pattern Library

Building good user interfaces is no trivial task. Many UCB campus web developers lack time and expertise for UI design or focus too intently on creating a distinctive visual design for specific sites. Budgets do not include allotments for UI designers or usability experts. Even when a web application developer consciously focuses on user interface design, the resulting application can have usability, consistency, and interoperability problems.

We are developing a user interface design pattern library to provide basic UI components and conventions to help alleviate or at least minimize these problems. A user interface design pattern is a document that describes a UI problem, its solution, a rationale for that solution and examples of the solution. The typical pattern format is text-heavy with few visuals and an unclear relationship between patterns. Typical pattern libraries are also discoverable primarily by the pattern name rather than the problem the pattern wishes to solve.

For more information, see the project website.

Team Members: Kelly Snow, Mano Marks, Tim Dennis, David Hong

Advisor: Robert Glushko