Monday 12 March 2007

Research a Pattern

Research on a Pattern:
I have researched and managed to find out about a pattern that is completed in a different preserving method. Yahoo has invented their own designing patterns catalogue. One of them is described under:

Tool Tip Invitation [1]:
This kind of pattern comes under the category of invitation in its design pattern catalogue.

Problem Summary:
Designer needs to cue the user about what will happen if they click the mouse on the hovered object.

Use When:
• You want to invite the user to click or interact with the object being hovered over.
• You want to make it clear that something will happen when the user clicks on the object being hovered over.
• The user is interacting directly with the object (e.g., inline editing).
• You need a textual description to make it explicit what will happen when the user interacts with the object.
• You want to entice the user to interact with the feature.

Solution:
• Provide a tool tip when the mouse is over the target area that calls the user to action.
• Show the tooltip within a very short amount of time (< .25 second) or immediately when the mouse hovers over the interaction area. • Keep the tooltip visible the whole time the user has the mouse over the interaction area. • Remove the tooltip when the mouse leaves the interaction area.

• Provide a short phrase that calls the user to action. • Use verbal phrases like 'Click to Edit'.

Reference:
[1] http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/pattern.php?pattern=tooltipinvitation

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sir!

Thanks indeed for the information.

It’s an interesting pattern. I’ve checked the link given in your references. Yahoo has no wonder design its own pattern catalogue. I should admit, besides the one you’ve selected to post, there’re many others worth understanding too.

Much obliged.

Asmat Ali said...

Yes, the link where I took this pattern from, was really helpful for me to help others and give them a simple idea of pattern.

M Nuruzzaman said...

Hi Asmat,

I completely agree with Abid… no wonder Yahoo has designed its own pattern catalogue because Yahoo is a big player in the market with a very interactive portal. They have a wide user base and they receive numerous comments and problems form their users. From those comments and problems they can easily identify repeated problems and can build their own pattern catalogue which in turn can be useful to other Website designers. I thank them for their effort to catalogue the patterns.

Yes, the pattern they found out is very useful indeed. Tool tip seems a tiny bit of text but they are useful and they make a website more interactive by giving hints to the users. In many cases, without tool tips we might be wondering whether to click the particular button or link or what exactly the functionality of that particular button or link is. Therefore, I would like to thank you too for bringing the pattern in our attention by posting it in your blog. Well done!

Zaman

Anonymous said...

People should read this.