Patterns for Personal Web Sites
There are many personal Web sites. The vast majority are mediocre. Some are bad. Fewer are good. An extremely small number are excellent.
These excellent sites -- and I use "excellent" subjectively -- fascinate me. Why is finding a new one such a delight? What distinguishes them from the rest? What unnamable yet instantly recognizable quality do they possess?
This is my attempt to answer some of these questions. My method is to distill the qualities of the best personal Web sites (and my own) into a set of patterns. These patterns can be used as guidelines for creating a personal Web site.
These patterns are for people who want to create a personal Web site that:
These patterns are not for people who want to create:
The intended audience is people who have a working knowledge of HTML and Web site design.
This is not a discussion of what patterns are. If you're interested in patterns, there are better descriptions available than anything I could write. Likewise, this is not an HTML or Web site design primer.
This collection of patterns is not a finished work. As patterns make themselves known, they'll be included. Here are some that are under consideration.
This is not a pattern language in Christopher Alexander's sense of the term. I truly wish it were; it would please me greatly to present a complete pattern language, rather than the work in progress these patterns represent. With a few more years' work these patterns may complete their transformation into a pattern language, but as I write they are missing several important components:
Organization. The scope of Christopher Alexander's architectural patterns range from countries down to windows. His group's patterns form a hierarchy, starting at the widest scope and proceeding to details. In contrast, the patterns presented here are an amorphous set. While there is a clear top-level pattern and a few low-level patterns, the interconnections between patterns do not follow a smooth top-down flow. There are gaps in the hierarchy, and patterns that do not fit well within it. Hence, it's not developed enough to merit being called a pattern language.
Justification. Mr. Alexander's patterns were backed up by evidence of their correctness. While that's true for some of the patterns on these pages, others are here for a variety of reasons: they were useful or self-evident, they seemed like a good idea, or they gave that sense of delight that a good pattern does.
Formal presentation. Mr. Alexander's patterns are presented as flexible solutions to problems arising from conflicts between forces. The patterns on these pages forego almost all of the structured presentation that made his book A Pattern Language famous. In particular, there is no introduction of patterns that give rise to a particular pattern. Also, the forces that engender each pattern are described very informally, if at all.
These patterns are not consistent. For example, the patterns Three Jump Maximum and Index Pages have different aims than Secret Garden. Yet each was important enough to include, despite their contradictions taken together.
Many of these patterns are not for everyone. This set of patterns has guided the growth of my site over the last seven years; your site undoubtedly has a different, though overlapping, set of patterns.
What you get out of these patterns is up to you. You can choose to adopt all, some, or none of them. Even if you adopt none, simply reading the patterns may give you ideas for improving your site.
Since content is critical to creating a good site, the best starting point is the first content pattern, Reward Visitors.
The idea for creating a set of patterns for personal Web sites gestated for at least seven years, starting when a friend mentioned the pattern that became Private Entrance. Since then, many people have influenced my thoughts on Web site patterns, including:
Robert Orenstein's An HTML 2.0 Pattern Language. Mr. Orenstein's patterns apply to generic documents, but some are relevant to personal Web sites. Also, to paraphrase Laurie Anderson, "[the introduction to his pattern language] says everything I wanted to say, only better.".
Mary E.S. Morris & Randy J. Hinrich's excellent 1996 book Web Page Design. Unlike most other Web-related books, it is about effective site design, rather than HTML and other technologies used to achieve that goal. Some of it's out of date, but the majority of it is timeless.
The Web site patterns on the Wiki Wiki Web.
Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox columns, which offer a wealth of advice on site usability.
Various friends and folks who've shared their thoughts on Web site design over the past few years.
These pages are available as a Downloadable Weblet for offline use. The archive file (zip format) is 94K.
If these patterns help you, or you take exception to them, please let me know. I consider these patterns a work in progress, and am interested in your comments.
Last updated 23 June 2002
http://www.rdrop.com/~half/Creations/Writings/Web.patterns/introduction.html
All contents ©2002 Mark L. Irons