User Age

Implementing a Pattern Library in the Real World: A Yahoo!
Case Studyby Erin Malone, Matt Leacock, Chanel Wheeler

Our Problem
Yahoo’s multiple business units, each containing decentralized user experience teams, have a natural tendency to design different solutions to similar problems. Left unchecked, these differences would weaken the Yahoo! brand and produce a less usable network of products. Designers and managers have discussed “standards” as a way to solve this problem but this standards content (often contained only in the memories of designers) has never existed in a commonly accessible format.

Our Goal
Our first goal was to find a way to communicate standards for interaction design to increase consistency, predictability, and usability across Yahoo! with the ultimate intention of strengthening the brand. This aligned with the business goal of increasing both the number of return visits and the average number of products used per session. Our second goal was to increase the productivity of the design staff by reducing time spent on “reinventing the wheel.” If we were successful, other designers could re-use the solutions contained in the library, reducing development time.

Our Solution
We designed and built a repository for interaction design patterns, created a process for submitting and reviewing the content, and seeded the resulting library with a set of sample patterns. We organized the content to make it findable, structured the content so it was predictable, and tested and iterated the design of the user interface of the tool to make it usable. Throughout this process, we introduced incentives for participation for both the contributors and management to encourage submissions and support. We took the following approach, broken down into the following stages:
Understanding and agreeing on the problem

- Developing a workflow
- Generating organizational buy-in (evangelizing)
- Selecting, designing, and building a application
- Using the pattern library as a body of standards
- Understanding and Agreeing on the Problem

What is SUMI?
The Software Usability Measurement Inventory is a rigorously tested and proven method of measuring software quality from the end user's point of view.

SUMI is a consistent method for assessing the quality of use of a software product or prototype, and can assist with the detection of usability flaws before a product is shipped.

It is backed by an extensive reference database embedded in an effective analysis and report generation tool
SUMI consists of 50 statements to which the user has to reply that they either Agree, Don't Know, or Disagree.

Here are some example statements:

Item No. Item Wording
1. This software responds too slowly to inputs.
3. The instructions and prompts are helpful.
13. The way that system information is presented is clear and understandable.
22. I would not like to use this software every day.

You may also take a look at a sample questionnaire (UK wording) in pdf format,

UI Patterns and Techniques: Introduction
*** This web site is becoming a book! "Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design" will be published by O'Reilly Media in late 2005. Stay tuned for news and more web site changes... (May 27, 2005) ***


If you've done any Web or UI design, or even thought about it much, you should say, "Oh, right, I know what that is" to most of these patterns. But a few of them might be new to you, and some of the familiar ones may not be part of your usual design repertoire.

Each of these patterns (which are more general) and techniques (more specific) are intended to help you solve design problems. They're common problems, and there's no point in reinventing the wheel every time you need, say, a sortable table -- plenty of folks have already done it, and learned how to do it well. Some of that knowledge is written up here, in an easily-digestible format.

SI MSI Degree: Human-Computer Interaction
University of Michigan - School of information

GRE Download Library Librería de documentos para prepararte para el exámen.