This study attempts to understand the patterns approach for interaction design, tracing its roots to architecture, and looks at how it has been adopted by computer programmers while highlighting the recent interests shown by people from the HCI domain. The paper also tries to establish the merits and limitations of the pattern approach and speculates on the use of patterns to aid the 'expert evaluation' in usability testing. It suggests the use of patterns as a delivery mechanism in place of specifications and the use of interaction design patterns to enrich the project life cycle. With the study of examples from IDC projects and the web, an attempt has been made to suggest how the ‘Patterns approach’ can be used to understand the fields of user interface design and IxD and its design implications.