Website Patterns

I still consider myself primarily a programmer, despite spending most of my time working on Web sites. I've been using patterns to improve my software - mostly programs for the construction and maintenance of sites, but also traditional CGI programs and servlets - but have started thinking about the patterns involved in the design and construction of the sites themselves.

The applicability of patterns to Web sites struck me after the recent launch of the site for a local hospital. Not even a week later, we found another recently launched hospital site that shared the same structure. Looking at the two side-by-side, I was struck by the thought that the other site's team certainly experienced the same forces we did. It's not quite the RuleOfThree, but I'm positive I could find another example.

Website Patterns:

Website Antipatterns:

I'm inserting here DynamicUserInterfacePattern vs StaticUserInterfacePattern?. I'm not sure which is the AntiPattern, but these topics can address several of each of the aforementioned pattern/AntiPatterns. -- WyattMatthews

Website Design Books:

WebSiteEngineering
DatabaseBackedWebSites
There's now a book that contains a pattern language for Web site design. The Design of Sites: Patterns, Principles, and Processes for Crafting a Customer-Centered Web Experience by Douglas K. van Duyne, James A. Landay, Jason I. Hong ISBN 020172149X . There's a companion Web site at http://www.thedesignofsites.com/. -- JohnBrewer
Phillip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing, PhilipGreenspun, http://philip.greenspun.com/books/. "The best book written on Web application development, and the most fun to read." -- AnonymousDonor
Software Engineering for Internet Applications, EveAndersson, PhilipGreenspun, and AndrewGrumet?, http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/.
WebPagesThatSuck

Website Usability Links

JakobNielsen (http://www.useit.com/)
JaredSpool? (http://www.uie.com/)
BruceTognazzini (http://www.asktog.com/)
VincentFlanders? (http://webpagesthatsuck.com)
PatrickLynch? and SarahHorton? (http://webstyleguide.com)

Other Web-related pattern languages

DanaAnthony's Shopping Cart language (http://www.vips.org/shopcart.html)
RobertOrenstein's HTML language (http://www.anamorph.com/docs/patterns/index.html) -- from 1995, but still has interesting ideas. The home page was mangled at some point, and hasn't been corrected, but the rest of the pages look okay.
MarkIrons?' Patterns for Personal Web Sites (http://www.rdrop.com/~half/Creations/Writings/Web.patterns/) -- although most of these are actually principles, and PrinciplesAreNotPatterns. Mea culpa. -- MarkIrons?
NatPryce's Patterns for Scripted Applications (http://web.archive.org/web/20071119015545/http://www-dse.doc.ic.ac.uk/~np2/patterns/scripting/)
ACM-SIGWEB's HypermediaDesignPatternsRepository (http://web.archive.org/web/20100408115422/http://www.designpattern.lu.unisi.ch/index.htm) (BrokenLink)
JavaIdioms
ComponentBasedDevelopment

Interesting Links

http://IAwiki.net/WebsitePatterns - a collection of links on the Information Architecture wiki
http://virtualschool.edu/wap - BradCox's WAP: Building Webapps in Java
http://www.websiteadvice.net - Information on planning, developing and promoting small business websites.
http://photo.net/ - "The best source of information for WebApplicationDesign and WebsitePatterns -- PatrickLogan"
http://www.appropriatesoftware.net/wiki?PatternsForDoingWebsites - "Myself and others have been working on various Web site design patterns and development ProcessPatterns; written primarily for non-profit organizations doing websites. -- JonTaylor"
http://developer.yahoo.net/ypatterns/ Yahoo! Design Pattern Library

See WebServicesPatterns, WebFormMethodologies, FederatedPage

Contributors: JoshuaKerievsky, NatPryce, KyleBrown

CategoryWebDesign