Implementing a Pattern Library in the Real World: A Yahoo! Case Study
The Problem
Yahoo’s multiple business units, each containing decentralized user experience teams, have a natural tendency to design different solutions to similar problems. Left unchecked, these differences would weaken the Yahoo! brand and produce a less usable network of products. Designers and managers have discussed “standards” as a way to solve this problem but this standards content (often contained only in the memories of designers) has never existed in a commonly accessible format.
I originally found this story because of the Drupal folks being excited about Yahoo choosing Drupal as the best CMS to meet their specific needs for this project. But there is much to learn from this collaborative standards formation, and knowledge management effort in the "interface design" space.
