Yahoo Design Patterns – Awesome!

There’s the thing you do all the time. Solutions that you have internalized and you often can look at a problem and you think “oh, that’s a _____ problem and if you do _____ it’s easy to solve.” That’s a design pattern: a generalized problem that has a set of generalized solutions.

Design patterns don’t mean cookie cutter solutions! Design patterns are just generalized solutions to common problems. They are usually a good starting point when tackling complex problems: deconstruct the complex problems to component pieces, look at common solutions, then build something unique and amazing by combining them in new ways and adding your own unique flourishes as appropriate.

When I saw the Yahoo Design Patterns page a light went off. Kind of like a flash bulb. I had been working on a conceptual site design for a client and, looking over the catalog of design patterns, I suddenly saw how I could combine a few pieces to make a pretty darn slick feature for the website.

I am going to make the YDP site a regular stop when I am pondering complex site architecture or UI issues. It’s great to have a simple catalog of basic design patterns to pour over.

It’s easy to get caught up in the complexities of a problem and forget to take a step back and think about it from a simpler, more granular level.

It’s much easier to deconstruct complex problems when you have a bare-bones catalog of simple design patterns staring you in the face. The little nuggets trigger all sorts of “aha” flashbulbs that get the creative juices flowing again.

Awesome.