Yahoo! Design Pattern Library relaunches with 10 new social patterns

Over one year in the making…

The work of many hands…

A much overdue look-and-feel refresh, with some much-needed (if subtle) usability improvements…

I am bursting with pride that I’m able to announce today the relaunch of the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library with “ten new patterns, a reorganized category-structure, cleaner URLs for easier bookmarking, and much, much more.”

For more details on the update see Design Patterns, Now More Open and Social, my post today on the Yahoo! Developer Network blog.

I’ll be doing more blogging over there about our library, design patterns, social design, and Yahoo!’s open and social platforms, and I’ll post some deeper dives into some of the new features and polices at the library over the coming weeks.

One key point I don’t want to gloss over:

[W]e are moving to a much more open pattern review and revision process: We’ve added a new rating level for patterns called “Beta,” and we will use it to publish unfinished patterns and request comments on them from the larger community. The accordion pattern will be the first guinea pig for this process, as we already published a survey through the YUI blog to solicit community input.

The wheel of convos

Pretty cool visualization of various types of social media platforms (based on a cyclical model of conversation).

(via Nick Terry)

See me speak at IDEA 2009

What is the IDEA Conference?

The IDEA Conference looks at the intersection of physical and information space and wonders how you design experiences for that. Erin and I have been granted a double session so that we can combine a straightforward presentation of the ideas in Designing Social Interfaces with an interactive quasi-workshop activity involving play-testing a prototype card game we’re designing to teach and provide playful contexts for exploring the dynamics of the social experience design pattern language we’re developing.

Beyond our own time slot, I’m very excited to see the other speakers at IDEA, which has earned a justified reputation as a murderer’s row of keynotes in past years. Bringing men and women from across a range of disciplines (architecture, game design, journalism, academia, information design, and so on) makes IDEA extremely “nutritional” for the mind and the creative spirit.

But it’s not all blue sky and horizons. We’re sharing practical advice, based on hard-won experiences. I happen to know that my colleague, Luke Wroblewski wants to share some things learned at Yahoo! from years of experimenting with various social (friendship, connection, and contact) models.

I’m also pretty excited about taking Nathan Curtis’s Modular User Experience Design & Deliverables workshop, which will directly help me in my work as a curator of patterns and design components.

From the people already showing interest in coming to IDEA I’m pretty sure the “real world” social networking will be a highlight as well. Good, smart people working on similar problems, meeting informally over dinner or drinks (or karaoke) – that’s the secret of a great conference.

Porter's three problems of social software

Excellent breakdown on how to obtain and sustain “traction” in social software design (the three problems are sign-up, first-time use, and ongoing engagement):

Designing For Social Traction

View more documents from Joshua Porter.

Miscellaneous tweetage

one unbook technique: put your book on github… http://icio.us/nhqsjx

lovingly hunting for bugs in the pattern library’s new design on the staging server

omg! this Pattern Language of Group Process http://grouppatternlanguage.org/ project/site/thing is amazing… need to dig into it further.

wow, i’m acting like a loose cannon online these days… take a step back from the keyboard, self…!

where does palin stand on fluoride in the water?

I see another article in the current ASIS&T bulletin recommends that UIs “Talk Like a Person”: http://bit.ly/159e4K

the last three oyster (of 110). we cooked the Hama-hamas, at the kumamotos and fanny bays and others raw. http://yfrog.com/0b9edj

Open source unbooks and a pattern language for groups

Two hot bookmarks today, each of which probably warrants a full blog post:

Book’em, Github | Linux Magazine
tech authors posting source code and sometimes entire books on GitHub

Pattern Language of Group Process
A pattern language for group dynamics whose goals include (1) To support Purpose-driven design. Form should follow function, (2) To deepen the skills of those who serve as group process guides, leaders, hosts, and facilitators, (3) To serve as a resource for those who are teaching others to design, lead, facilitate group process, (4) To increase process literacy among people who are users of process(es)

When in Rome…

When my Bulletin article got written up in Metafilter, I started posting replies in haste without allowing the conversation to unfold naturally.

I’ve spent a lot more time at Reddit in the last few years than at Metafilter, and more time than both on the Well. Along the way, I forgot some of my experience participating in communities when you’re not a regular but you’re not a noob.

Fortunately, it turned out reasonably well and most of the people who offered me advice on how to behave were nice about it:

@replies considered harmful
on metafilter at least. I get taken to school in mefi-tiquette.

Still it’s a good reminder that I’m as prone as anyone to putting my foot in my virtual mouth and need to be a little less quick on the keyboard trigger finger.

Good day for Twitter favorites

MaryHodder: RT @zephoria: “Are You F*cking Kidding Me?” is a hysterical song about Facebook/Twitter by Kate Miller-Heidke http://bit.ly/nU5Ve

steveportigal: Delish: Sherry Turkle is Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT and a sociologi.. http://bit.ly/12aqlc

laughingsquid: hilarious @parislemon didn’t like @songadaymann’s @bing jingle http://bit.ly/jrdeO, so @songadaymann made one about him http://bit.ly/18DGq5

davegray: This book I am working on is gonna KICK ASS!

cwodtke: @bokardo http://cameronmarlow.com/papers/feed-me

nwjerseyliz: Has anyone tried Muuter (http://muuter.com/)? Tagline: “Because we get tired of noisy twitters too…”

joshu: delicious, fix the popular algos. nytimes should not be here: http://delicious.com/popular/news … happy to tweet algo in case you forgot.

Google, you got me all wrong!

google thinks I’m part of the denial of service attack

Space blues redux

You Don’t Love Me (Live 1971) by The Allman Brothers Band

Big Day At The Bay by The Mermen

Mannish Boy by Jimi Hendrix