Ultimately, everything we design is there to consume content. Whether that’s images, text, video, or whatever, they are (almost) all containers. When designing for responsive sites, this is even more true. The modules/components will scale and in many cases the content within them will too. A lot of the work we are doing at Splendid these days is responsive, and it’s surprising how many designers don’t really understand the importance of the pattern in this type of project.
My first exposure to patterns was back in 2003, when the company I was working for were working on design patterns for Visa. The discipline was considered relatively new at the time, at least from a digital context. Obviously lately there’s been a resurgence, as designers begin to understand how to use patterns, and more importantly how to make them scalable.
An article popped up on my Twitter feed the other day, which is actually a pretty decent set of considerations. I shared it round the office, and will hopefully get roux to seeing if anyone actually read it! Here’s the link:
Personally, I think more needs to be done to explain HOW to use patterns, on top of articles such as this which explain the patterns themselves. I’ve (recently) seen designers come up with some interesting design patterns for individual screens or components, but they have absolutely no consistency to the overall experience. I’m hoping we’ll get round to a decent formal of how to explain (and solve) this issue, but until then… send me your thoughts!