By Aaron Gustafson CHAPTER 7It may sound like I have no love for UI frameworks, but that’s not the
case. While I don’t advocate their use on public websites, I do think they
present valuable learning opportunities. The same goes for other publicly
available pattern libraries^17.
Seeing what others have done helps ensure we don’t miss anything
when we work on our own pattern libraries — ones that directly meet our
company’s or our clients’ needs. In his discussion of responsive delivera-
bles^18 , Dave Rupert echoed this very point: “Responsive deliverables should
look a lot like fully-functioning Twitter Bootstrap-style systems custom
tailored for your clients’ needs.” 19
Pattern libraries are a godsend for everyone on the team, from upper
management to the grunts pounding out pages. They provide a consistent
catalog of components that can be plucked out and incorporated into a
17 http://smashed.by/pattern-libraries
18 http://smashed.by/rd
19 https://github.com/bradfrost/patternlab
Brad Frost’s PatternLab is an excellent tool for helping create
and maintain pattern libraries and then combine those patterns
into page templates: http://demo.pattern-lab.info/