About
Behavior Patterns
A library of behavior design patterns from products people come back to.
Products shape behavior through small choices: what they make easy, what they delay, what they reward, what they explain, and when they ask for trust. This library studies those choices as reusable patterns.
By documenting patterns from learning, fitness, finance, media, social, AI, and wellness products, we can better understand how motivation, feedback, trust, and repeat use are built across domains.
Each pattern lays out the psychology that makes it work, what to weigh when you build it, and how it plays out in real products. Use it to design experiences people come back to.
How patterns make it in
The library currently holds 23 patterns drawn from 12 products. Each one is used, captured, and written up against the same four standards.
It has to be shipping
Every pattern comes from a product people actually use, captured from the live interface. Nothing here is a concept, a redesign, or a pattern borrowed from another library.
It has to be visible
Each claim is tied to a screenshot of the screen it describes. If the behavior cannot be shown, it does not go in, which is why some patterns wait until the evidence is there.
It has to be a mechanism, not a feature
A pattern is the underlying move, separated from the product that happens to use it, so it can be adapted rather than copied.
It has to name the risk
The same mechanism that builds a habit can create pressure, shame, or dependency. Every pattern documents where it turns manipulative, including when the example product is the one crossing the line.
Screenshots show each product as it was at the time of writing. Interfaces change, so a pattern describes the mechanism rather than promising the screen still looks that way today.
Curated by Maria Borysova
Maria Borysova is a product designer and design studio founder. She turns behavioral insight into products that are clear, useful, and commercially sound.
This library is the working reference behind that practice: the patterns she keeps returning to when a product needs people to start, understand, trust, or come back, written down so they can be reused rather than rediscovered.
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