Lecture - 27.02.07 Research of a New Pattern

Just a quick re-cap to What is Pattern?
Basically, Pattern is a solution to problems which keeps occuring over and over again within a particular context.

I am enclosing one of the PATTERNS released by YAHOO and this Pattern is used by Web Designers, find the details of the Pattern below:

NAME : EXPAND TRANSITION

INVENTED BY : YAHOO

KNOWN USES : YAHOO BETA MAPS


PROBLEM
Designer needs to show the detail of an object in its context or reveal a previously collapsed object.

IT IS USED WHEN:

- This pattern is used to manage large contents and modules.
- Shrink feature to create a way to manage real estate on the screen.
- As part of rollover system (with Shrink) to emphasize the currently hovered on object.( e.g; photos in a photo album).
- Need to see more detail (Y! Local maps).
- The need to interact with the content that was previously represented in a thumbnail version.
- Wanting to see the detail of an item in a list (e.g., movie details in a movie list).
- Making content available for editing.

SOLUTION

It increase the size of an object while animating the in-between sizes (tweening). This communicates similar meaning, as does the brighten transition and good rule of thumb is complete an expand in less than 0.5 seconds.

RATIONALE
There are 2 logics behind this pattern designed and those are:

- To expand visually more eye-catching than a brighten, especially when combined with the move transition.

- Be careful to not overuse expand. For example, in a photo application, if you provide a rollover to expand photos from thumbnail to a larger size the transitions will become annoying as the user will see them back-to-back. Either remove the transition altogether or make it extremely fast.

REFERENCE LINK
http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/pattern.php?pattern=expand

Design Patterns

"A design pattern names, abstract, and identifies the key aspectsof a common design structure that make it useful for creating a reusable object design. The design pattern identifies the participating classes and instances, their roles and collaborations, and the distribution of responsibilities." [1]

FAQ's

1. What is a Pattern?
Pattern is a solution to re-occurring real life problems within a context. For example, if you are decorating your kitchen to overcome space problem you will therefore acquire consultation from Kitchen Decoraters who will have surely have various types of designs available to accomodate individual needs.

2. Why is Patterns becoming so famous and encouraged to be used?
Simply because Patterns addresses every little aspect of the context and than solution is either ready to be used or invented.

3. What is the advantage of using Pattern?
Patterns encourage reusability. They are used over and over again which means the solutions provided has been tested and proven to be successful. It saves alot of time from re-inventing new designs.

4. How would one be able to identify that if it is a Pattern or not?
A structured way of solving problem is when you identify a Pattern.


REFERENCE

[1] - (Design Pattern - Elements of reusable object oriented software, GOF, (Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson and John Vlissides, p. 4-5)

High Turn Over of Staff in Retail Industry

NAME : HIGH TURN OVER of STAFF in RETAIL INDUSTRY

PROBLEM : Why is there a high turn over of staff in Retail Industry?

CONTEXT : In most of the retail outlets you will find students(between 18 to 24 years) or individuals who have
retired early( 55+ of age and above) are being employed. Employees from the students category do
not take their jobs seriously. Firstly, because the younger people are not satisfied with wages they get paid and secondly, the employers do not put much effort into employees career
development.

SOLUTION : Employers should have career paths designed for employees who would like to make their
careers with the company by having trainning & development session and this can be done by
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT REVIEW (PDR) every half yearly. This PDR should give
a general view of where the employees is being groomed on and this will build the relationship
between the managers and the employees which plays a part in creating sence of taking
responsibility and commitment.