[Design Patterns] OSDPL Questions of the day - Goal & Audiences

[Colin Clark]

Hi all,

On 13-May-08, at 11:07 AM, Allison Bloodworth wrote:
> Is this the best statement of our goal? Can we add to this and flesh  
> it out more?
>
I think it would be great if we specifically identified openness as a  
goal for the patterns library. One of the strengths of the OSDPL is  
that it is very open and collaborative. Anyone can contribute  
patterns, and everyone has the right to reuse and repurpose our  
patterns in whatever way they see fit. The fact that we're building an  
open community around patterns, along with our Creative Commons  
license, distinguishes our work from the corporate-driven pattern sets  
out there.

> 2. Who is the audience of the OSDPL? Are we trying to serve too many  
> different audiences, and if so, should we try to pick a primary  
> audience to serve? Is it possible to pick a primary audience to  
> focus on where if we serve their needs, we will end up serving most  
> of the needs of our other audiences? (This is a similar concept to  
> picking a primary persona on whom to focus a website or  
> application's design. In this situation we also try to meet the  
> needs of secondary personas, but never to the detriment of the  
> primary persona's experience.)
>

I've always seen patterns as a bridge between designers and  
developers. As Daphne mentioned, they help establish a shared  
vocabulary for design idioms. I do find patterns especially appealing  
as advice for non-designers, but I don't think it has to be an either/ 
or situation in terms of identifying a target audience.

My two cents,

Colin

---
Colin Clark
Technical Lead, Fluid Project
Adaptive Technology Resource Centre, University of Toronto
http://fluidproject.org