Predefined, reusable structures that guide actors in creating consistent items.
Some users can build nicely-formatted documents from scratch using atomic tools — the equivalent of hammers, saws, and chisels. But many require more: the equivalent of an unfinished table or chair that they can sand and paint. Templates serve this scaffolding function, bridging the gap between capability and intent.
User needs
Reduce cognitive load, standardise content quality, support collaborative workflows.
Examples
- Document templates: blank page, essay, plan, report, letter, proposal
- Structured prompts
- Prompt/template galleries (Bench-like)
- Collaborative canvas suggestions (FigJam-like)
- Workflow templates
To-do
- History and versioning
- Comments and annotations
- Sharing
Consequences
- the actor starts from a shape that already reflects competent work, and occupying it teaches the form in a way describing it wouldn't
- the template is now a default the actor may not realise they can leave, so whatever it happens to prescribe gets treated as required
- a set of templates is a curation with an owner: the conventions they encode drift, and the templates keep proposing last year's shape until somebody revisits them
Related patterns
Enables
- Onboarding — starter templates give the newcomer competent work to occupy
Enacts
- Learnability — templates carry the shape of competent work, letting the actor learn the form by occupying it
Complements
- Suggestion
- Wizard — when templates are generated through step-by-step choices
Instantiated by
- Prompt scaffolding — the template pattern applied to requests