Plone: Improving the user experience - A design pattern database

It is important to see how others are doing things, it gives you a chance to see where you could do some things better. I propose that the Plone community begin to bookmark valuable design patterns.

Think of it as a study of the artifacts of other applications, in a sense a bit anthropological as Limi suggested at the 2010 Plone conference (see http://blip.tv/file/4310012 start at 39:24).

The archive might be organized in a manner similar to the implementation at http://ui-patterns.com. When you come across a pattern that you find useful just make a note of it and how it might be helpful to Plone.

Benefits

1. A good reference for features that can be added to future Plone releases
2. The beginnings of a lightweight Human Interface Guide for Plone

A Sample Entry

A typical entry would include the following: title,screenshot of the artifact, category, rationale (how it could be used to improve the Plone user experience), URL (where to see it in action), instructions (in case you need to do something more to view the artifact), videoURL(optional demo video).

Artifact: Inline Picture Management

Screenshot:

Category: Media Management, Page Editing

Rationale: This helps the end user to stay focused on the task of page layout, reduces switching of context.

URL: http://weebly.com

Instructions: Sign up for a free account at weebly.com, add a site, edit the site in the weebly editor go to 'Elements' and drag a 'Paragraph with Picture' element to the page.
videoUrl (optional):

I think this is different from the http://plone.uservoice.com, because it isn't a direct request for a feature, it's just a catalog of "useful approaches".