The Designing Social Interfaces patterns wiki is a companion site to the book that Christian Crumlish and Erin Malone are currently writing for O'Reilly Media.

We decided to share the patterns as we write the patterns and the book to get community feedback. We think that hearing a variety of opinions about these topics will make the material stronger and more representative of what's happening in social interfaces. As we complete sections of the book, we will be adding the patterns.

Consumer devices like the Nintendo Wii and the Apple iPod have shown that the simplest interfaces can win over users in record numbers - why simplification works and how the drive for innovation ties in with the Principle of least astonishment.

With OverSite™, you can quickly define the hierarchy of your website or application. Create sections and subsections, then fill them with pages and screens. Rearrange your structure with OverSite's easy drag-and-drop interface.

Reuse, recycle, but don’t reinvent the wheel unless necessary. This collection captures findings of consistent, unique or interesting interfaces and design flows from across the web.

Just ditch the question mark and use the hash mark to denote query parameters and you can rebuild Ajax state and give the user a permalink.

I’ve been using 960 for some time now, as it’s slightly smaller than full width, and it’s divisible by 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, and 16 (imagine the grid possibilities). I’d love to hear what all of you are wrestling with.

My recommendation is that you should optimize your designs for a width of 770 pixels while making sure they scale fluidly from 770 pixels to 960 pixels.