Favorites

It works like this:

Favorite

Assigning favorites is a quick way of discerning preferred content from regular content. Favoring is done in a listview, or alternatively (not recommended) in detailed view of the item itself.

  1. An outline of a quick favorite link ( usually a star) is visible in one of the top corners of the item.

  2. When the favorite link is tapped…

  3. …it is highlighted and the item is favored

Use when

Use this pattern when your app provides a large amount of content items and you want the user to be able to differentiate these items. Provide a quick favorite link, juxtaposed to the item in the listview. This link usually takes the shape of a star. Additionally, you can provide a list of favored items only, accessible through a menu-item.
Do not use favorites when you want to discern multiple categories. You can use tags or folders instead

The Good

  • Easy one-step method of differentiating a large amount of items

The Bad

  • Just one level in differentiating (on-off)
  • No possibilities for adding metadata to the favorite

    Examples

    Gmail

    Gmail 01

    1 Gmail shows a list of emails, accompanied by a quick favortie link (the star). When the star is tapped...

    Gmail 02

    2 ... it is highlighted and the email is favored.

    Gmail 03

    3 Through the main menu item "go to labels"...

    Gmail 04

    4 ... the labels menu is opened. The "Starred" item is tapped...

    Gmail 05

    5 ...to show the list of favorite items.

    HTC Browser history

    HTC Browser history 01

    1 In HTC's browser, an overview of visited websites is given, each site accompanied by a quick favorite link (a star)

    HTC Browser history 02

    2 When a star is tapped, it is highlighted, and a toast notification is displayed, informaing the user the link has been added to favorites

    HTC Browser history

    3 In the overview, favored items are easily recognisable by the highlighted star.

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