Sep 29
We were in need of some UI Inspiration. I went out and found some fantastic galleries that provide up to date patterns and trends that we are seeing around the web. Below are the best libraries I found.
Pattern Tap
- Constantly updated
- Categorized collections for locating specific types of UI inspiration
- Faceted search through tags for filtering needs
- A Community of highly involved users
- Clean and intuitive design and navigation of its own
Quince
- Collection of old and new patterns
- Categorized collections for locating specific types of UI inspiration
- Alphabetical, tag, and user task related faceted filtering
- Search feature available
- Clean and intuitive design and navigation of its own
- Visualization of UI relationships
- Beautiful liquid layout
- Built with Silverlight
Welie
- Large pattern list
- Screenshot examples
- Filter by need of the user
- Visio tips and tricks, Macros!
- Hasn’t been updated since June 2008
Yahoo!
- Yahoo! provided content
- Categorized collections for locating specific types of UI inspiration
- Faceted navigation style
- Why, why, when, and how certain patterns should be implemented
- Limited examples, Yahoo! specifics provided
- Links to YUI (Yahoo! User Interface Library) for JavaScript code for building mentioned interactions
jQuery
- Smaller collection
- jQuery specific widgets and actions
- Useable live demos
UI Pattern Factory
- Specific to best in practice examples
- Video examples of interactions
- Vote for new patterns to be added to the collection
- Voting involved community, new posts are rare
UI Patterns
- Similar to PatternTap
- Nice screenshot collections for a quick sneak peek
- Footer provides quick breakdown of available design patterns
O’Reilly
- Excerpts from the book
- Touchpoints with What, When, Why, and How
- It’s O’Reilly, good stuff, period
flickr Web Site Group
- Large collection of images
- Images are tagged fairly consistently
- Search for the inspiration you are looking for and get results
- Very little explanation to screenshots provided
flickr Janne L
- Large collection of images from an individual
- Not organized for specific UI feature surfing
- Very little explanation to screenshots provided
CSS Mania
- Large gallery of CSS Designs
- Beautiful interface designs and inspiration on navigation and layout
- Little to no organization, only a monthly gallery filter
- Updated regularly and offers a great RSS feed
- Many similar galleries
http://www.CSSLeak.com
Visual Complexity
- Large gallery of Data Visualizations
- Fantastic organizational structure
- Faceted search for filtering
- Beautiful examples with great explanation and information on the data shown
- Updated regularly and offers a great RSS feed