Friday, April 17th, 2009
Quince: UX Pattern Explorer (in Silverlight)
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A reader recently pointed us to Quince, an on-line directory of UX design patterns created by Infragistics. At first glance, Quince seems an Ajax application with some interesting animated effects, but it turns out to have been written using Silverlight (no surprise given Infragistics background).
Run-time platform notwithstanding, Quince contains around 100 patterns with large numbers of examples from desktop, web, and other platforms.
What other UX design pattern resources do you use?
Related Content:
2.2 rating from 65 votes
Definite +10 on artistic design. -100 for using silverlight
I don’t see why using Silverlight should be a bad thing.
Do you say this because it is a Mircosoft product?
http://www.patterntap.com
http://www.miniajax.com
I check’em daily.
@Vordreller:
My argument has little to do with it being a Microsoft product. It completely has to do with it being a proprietary, binary format plugin. I have the same argument against Flash content, but to a lesser degree due to their recent trend towards more open solutions.
http://interface.fh-potsdam.de/infodesignpatterns/patterns.php
@Vordreller
Given Microsoft’s history of “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish,” I’ve just got very bad feelings about Silverlight, no matter how nice it seems.
I’m a full time Linux user (I’m not a Microsoft hater), and it could be better if they had used a technology that doesn’t exclude a specific group of users.
Even Flash has a good support to Linux nowadays.
@TNO: In my limited experience with Silverlight, I’ve never used binary formats. I use XAML and JavaScript.
@golimpio: Have you checked out Moonlight?
@MattCoz:
Looks pretty binary to me:
http://thenewobjective.com/temp/silverlight.png
@TNO:
Using the object tag doesn’t make the format binary!
IE uses plugin support for SVG as well, does that make SVG binary?
+1 for Moonlight and Mono, which are never far behind the official releases
@ahmedkamel
Apparently my terminology usage is confusing you, so let me clarify:
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#1 It requires a plugin to run the content which is what I am referring to as binary, see my second post and this time read what it says, not what you think I meant when I wrote it.
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“IE uses plugin support for SVG as well, does that make SVG binary?’
See #1.
If content requires a user to install a plugin then it is unnacceptable. Yes even with SVG or X3D.
@TNO:
can you emphasise on “I have the same argument against Flash content, but to a lesser degree due to their recent trend towards more open solutions.”, it’s confusing me a bit too.
What part of this couldn’t be done with Javascript?
@Vordreller, ahmedkamel:
It’s dangerous (and naive) for us developers to develop in proprietary platforms.
Platforms, by their very nature, should be public and open. They exist to bring us together. So they should never be controlled by a single private entity.
Imagine a world where a single company would control the air we breathe… Or the language we communicate in…
If we allow a company to own a platform that we build everything on, we are 100% dependent on this company.
This situation, of course, is wonderful for such a company — they can do whatever they please, they can dictate the rules — and we — we can do nothing, we have become powerless.
In several sectors of our economy there is virtual no competition because the platforms, instead of open and standardized, are the property of a single company.
This situation must change. Because it serves only these few companies who dominate. It does NOT serve us — the users, the consumers.
If Microsoft weren’t still trying to win though the ownership and control of platforms, then they would be much more like, for example, Google. They would open source and standardize their platforms. They would work together with other rival companies to define the specs of new platforms, etc. They would build their solutions to support all the major OSes: Windows, Linux and Mac.
I know that Microsoft has, lately, started to open source and standardize a tiny bit of their technologies — still, as you and me know, they are going through this process like snails…
The truth is that Microsoft isn’t used to competing fairly. They are not used to winning through superior technology, but through “lock-in” solutions — solutions where you become dependent on them — i.e., Windows, Office.
I give you an example — thousands of companies nowadays simply cannot switch to Linux without spending millions of dollars to “free their data” and use alternatives to their current applications. Why? Because:
- These applications use proprietary formats for data;
- These applications are closed-source and run only on Windows.
Now, just remember this tiny little thing: Windows and Office are the platforms that bring Microsoft money. So, which platforms do you think Microsoft is trying to protect? So, do you have any doubt that Silverlight is part of this strategy?
Silverlight is part of Microsoft’s strategy to re-gain control of the web via a Microsoft proprietary and patent-laden technology. This has been exhaustively documented at sites such as Groklaw and Boycott Novell.
Microsoft’s anti-competitive behavior continues as strong as ever behind its facade of openness.
A little correction to my last paragraph:
Now, just remember this tiny little thing: **the Windows and Office platforms are what brings Microsoft money, by far**. So, which platforms do you think Microsoft is trying to protect? So, do you have any doubt that Silverlight is part of this strategy?
@MattCoz I’ve tried Moonlight once, but it was not a good experience (lots of memory + cpu consumption). I saw that they have a new alpha version that is supposed to be compatible with Silverlight 2, but I didn’t tried it yet.
They provide an HTML version for those of us who don’t want to install Silverlight.
HTML version … that’s very thoughtful of them … a lot of sites who use the richer technologies could learn from that.
It’s not exactly progressive enhancement, but it’s a pretty good start, and it allows me to get the content. Kudos!
This one is pretty cool, too:
http://ui-patterns.com/
I am no fan of Silverlight either! I can’t even install it on my PowerPC… come on!!!
@andysky
Brilliant explanation, epic one ;)
+100 for andysky
-100 for Silverlight
ThomasHansen, pmontrasio: Thank you. :)
Ahh Silverlight, how I hate you for making the backend developers here think they are somewhat creative. Not to mention full screen + right click == scroll bars.
FAIL.
The application is nice, but the content has little to do with user experience; they are just user interface patterns.