Helen Brewer

INFORMATION_ARCHITECTURE

INFORMATION_ARCHITECTURE_274_REVIEW

A pattern language is an organized and coherent set of patterns, each of which describes a

problem and the core of a solution that can be used in many ways within a specific field of

expertise.The term was coined by architect Christopher Alexander and popularized by his

1977 book A Pattern Language.A pattern language can also be an attempt to express the

deeper wisdom of what brings aliveness within a particular field of human endeavor,

through a set of interconnected patterns.Aliveness is one placeholder term for "the quality

that has no name": a sense of wholeness, spirit, or grace, that while of varying form, is

precise and empirically verifiable.Alexander claims that ordinary people can use this design

approach to successfully solve very large, complex design problems.== What is a pattern?==

When a designer designs something – whether a house, computer program, or lamp – they

must make many decisions about how to solve problems.A single problem is documented

with its typical place (the syntax), and use (the grammar) with the most common and

recognized good solution seen in the wild, like the examples seen in dictionaries.Each such

entry is a single design pattern.Each pattern has a name, a descriptive entry, and some

cross-references, much like a dictionary entry.A documented pattern should explain why

that solution is good in the pattern's contexts.Elemental or universal patterns such as

"door" or "partnership" are versatile ideals of design, either as found in experience or for

use as components in practice, explicitly described as holistic resolutions of the forces in

recurrent contexts and circumstances, whether in architecture, medicine, software

the naturally occurring patterns of design that characterize human environments.Like all

languages, a pattern language has vocabulary, syntax, and grammar – but a pattern language

applies to some complex activity other than communication.In pattern languages for design,

the parts break down in this way:

The language description – the vocabulary – is a collection of named, described solutions to

problems in a field of interest.These are called design patterns.So, for example, the language

for architecture describes items like: settlements, buildings, rooms, windows, latches,

etc.Each solution includes syntax, a description that shows where the solution fits in a

larger, more comprehensive or more abstract design.This automatically links the solution

into a web of other needed solutions.For example, rooms have ways to get light, and ways to

get people in and out.The solution includes grammar that describes how the solution solves

a problem or produces a benefit.So, if the benefit is unneeded, the solution is not

used.Perhaps that part of the design can be left empty to save money or other resources; if

people do not need to wait to enter a room, a simple doorway can replace a waiting room.In

the language description, grammar and syntax cross index (often with a literal alphabetic

index of pattern names) to other named solutions, so the designer can quickly think from

one solution to related, needed solutions, and document them in a logical way.In

Christopher Alexander's book A Pattern Language, the patterns are in decreasing order by

size, with a separate alphabetic index.The web of relationships in the index of the language

provides many paths through the design process.This simplifies the design work because

designers can start the process from any part of the problem they understand and work

toward the unknown parts.At the same time, if the pattern language has worked well for

many projects, there is reason to believe that even a designer who does not completely
understand the design problem at first will complete the design process, and the result will

be usable.For example, skiers coming inside must shed snow and store equipment.The

messy snow and boot cleaners should stay outside.The equipment needs care, so the racks

should be inside.== Many patterns form a language ==

Just as words must have grammatical and semantic relationships to each other in order to

make a spoken language useful, design patterns must be related to each other in position

and utility order to form a pattern language.Christopher Alexander's work describes a

process of decomposition, in which the designer has a problem (perhaps a commercial

assignment), selects a solution, then discovers new, smaller problems resulting from the

larger solution.Occasionally, the smaller problems have no solution, and a different larger

solution must be selected.Eventually all of the remaining design problems are small enough

or routine enough to be solved by improvisation by the builders, and the "design" is

done.The actual organizational structure (hierarchical, iterative, etc.)is left to the discretion

of the designer, depending on the problem.This explicitly lets a designer explore a design,

starting from some small part.When this happens, it's common for a designer to realize that

the problem is actually part of a larger solution.At this point, the design almost always

becomes a better design.In the language, therefore, each pattern has to indicate its

relationships to other patterns and to the language as a whole.This gives the designer using

the language a great deal of guidance about the related problems that must be solved.The

most difficult part of having an outside expert apply a pattern language is in fact to get a

reliable, complete list of the problems to be solved.Of course, the people most familiar with

the problems are the people that need a design.