Teaching Usability Design Through Pattern Language

For interface designers to produce really usable software they require both knowledge of tools and methodologies and appropriate attitudinal, aesthetic and creative characteristics. Usability design patterns, based on the ideas of Christopher Alexander, offer an approach to this educational need. We discuss three approaches to incorporating design patterns into teaching: teaching about pattern language, teaching throughpattern language and discovering patterns. We suggest that developing an ability to see successful usability design solutions as patterns is more important than knowing a canonical set of particular patterns, but that this is an extremely difficult skill to acquire.

Griffiths, Richard N. and Lyn Pemberton. University of Brighton. Articles>Education>Usability