paper & pencil

Yahoo! Pattern Library Open to the Public

Now available to the public on the Yahoo! Developer Network is the Design Pattern Library and a companion UI Code Library.

The Yahoo! User Interface Library is a set of utilities and controls, written in JavaScript, for building richly interactive web applications using techniques such as DOM  scripting, HTML and AJAX. The UI Library Utilities facilitate the implementation of rich client-side  features by enhancing and normalizing the developer's interface to important elements of the browser  infrastructure (such as events, in-page HTTP requests and the DOM). The Yahoo UI Library Controls produce visual, interactive user interface elements on the page with just a few lines of code and an included CSS file. All the components in the Yahoo! User Interface Library have been released as open source under a BSD license and are free for all uses.

Each pattern contains the following information:

• Summary
• Example image
• Use When
• Solution (Layout, Interaction)
• Rationale
• Accessibility
• Links to related patterns
• Links to where it is used on Yahoo! sites
• Link to the related blog entry on the Yahoo! User Interface Blog
• Link to code example, if available

Not all of Yahoo!'s design patterns are available to the public but the site says they hope to release them monthly.

Portals as Concept, Portals as Technology

James Robertson of Step Two Designs, wrote a lengthy and very helpful article on portals titled "Taking a business-centric approach to portals".

There is a clear need to deliver better information management solutions for users and for the business as a whole. The existing mess of overlapping (or even competing) information systems with most organisations must be addressed and resolved.

Enterprise portals may be able to assist with resolving these issues. If they are to succeed, however, organisations must be fully aware of both their strengths and weaknesses (just like any technology).

Most importantly, these projects must be driven by clear staff and organisational needs, as well as a clear vision of the user experience that must be delivered.

Where portal projects are driven solely by IT considerations, they will fail. They do not offer a 'silver bullet', nor will they eliminate the need to better manage the underlying information.

By taking a business-focused (and user-centric) approach to portal projects, organisations can take valuable steps towards the goal of providing a single information environment for staff.

The Year in Ideas: Folksonomy

The term, "folksonomy" made it into The New York Times 2005-issue of The Year in Ideas.

Grass-roots categorization, by its very nature, is idiosyncratic rather than systematic. That sacrifices taxonomic perfection but lowers the barrier to entry. Nobody needs a degree in library science to participate.