5 Sites For UI Design Patterns That I’m Following And Why You Should Too

3 min readDec 12, 2020

Most of the time, when we are trying to solve a problem, the chances of that solutions of similar problems is already out there is high. Instead of spending days or weeks to design a solution from scratch, we can look for a design that solves a problem that has been solved inside a different application before. That’s a design pattern to us.

What are User Interface (UI) design patterns?

User interface (UI) design patterns are reusable/recurring components which designers use to solve common problems in user interface design. For example, the breadcrumbs design pattern lets users retrace their steps. Designers can apply them to a broad range of cases, but must adapt each to the specific context of use. — Interaction Design Foundation

Here is a list of my 5 favorite sites to find design patterns.

1. UI Patterns

This is my go-to site. UI Patterns makes it easy to find patterns that you like and to group them together once you’ve decided that something is useful. They also have a bunch of interesting articles on UI design patterns which can help extend the way you approach using patterns in your designs.

2. Pattern Browser

Pattern Browser lets you quickly switch between UI patterns in your browser window. There aren’t as many patterns here as on some of the bigger sites but it’s still a good resource that worth looking.

3. Elements of Design

Elements of Design is a collection of UI components that highlight best practices for particular design patterns from leading websites around the world. You will find some useful groupings of design elements.

4. UI Scraps

UI Scraps is a collection of good, bad and noteworthy user interface designs found by Jason Robb. It looks at interface design as a whole and then tinkers with the patterns used.