7.2. Language structure from where you have come to the current pattern; the outro3 states to which patterns you should go from here. Optionally, a pattern may be complemented with an interaction design mockup depicting the textual solution. To summarize, patterns consist of 1. an introduction, stating from where this pattern may be reached, 2. a problem description, 3. its context & forces, 4. its core, the solution’s description, 5. an outro, noting where to proceed in the language, and optionally 6. an interaction design mock-up. To simplify apprehension, these sections are delineated typographically, with a visual emphasis on the problem and solution parts. Additionally, Pattern names (79) are started with a capital letter and emphasized as shown. The page on which the respective pattern can be found is included in parentheses. Peek at the pattern Sign-in page (84) to see an example. In addition to this structure of individual patterns, this pattern language organizes its patterns in three chapters, each with two subsections. Each section groups patterns of a specific aspect so that you may access them conveniently even when not in the process of designing an application. The three chapters and their focuses are: Conceiving information architecture considers the overall organization of a business intelligence application in terms of its front-end. Its first subsection provide patterns on structuring contents, for example so-called Index pages (89) that allow for an overview of contents available. The second subsection covers means of navigating through contents, e.g. Navigation (89) or Searching information (95). Developing content components then covers the characters and forms of application content. Its subsection modeling contents supplies patterns for full-page Content components (107) and their smaller relatives Content modules (87). In the following subsection, content layout is observed concerning BI-specific problems. To give an example, it is suggested to provide Information in context (117). Designing interactions finally considers the direct manipulations of the application by its users. This chapter is divided in the subsections interacting with content and application interaction. The first for example provides 3
or subordinate context
79
Pattern organization