In pattern terms there will be a few patterns for visual interface layering that you heard of, MVC, MVP, Humble Dialog etc. I was talking with Howard one night and he mentioned his interest in a MVP variant called Presenter First. This variant incrases the layering of MVP triads in the pattern and brings a more TDD approach to the pattern. The paper is a must read as is the interviews the authors had with Ron Jacobs , there is also further examples here and here . On a related note visual interface patterns for me still seem to fail the issue of dealing with threads and managing an interfaces behaviour in a thread, I was talking this through with Jeff and he later blogged his thoughts here . Read More...