Favorites

Problem Context

• The product has revisitable objects such as files, folders, repositories, topics, records, reports, saved searches, messages, products, places, or help articles.
• Users may want to mark an item for personal return, preference, or liking without making it the top item for everyone.
• Favorite state can feed a personal list, a quick-access section, public popularity counts, recommendations, or cross-device sync depending on the product.
• Favorite items can be deleted, moved, permission-lost, hidden by policy, duplicated by similar names, or confused with pins, subscriptions, saved views, and collections.

Selection Rules

• Choose favorites when the main user intent is personal preference, affinity, or saved return access for known items.
• Use pinned items when the action changes placement, top-section prominence, stable order, or public profile display.
• Use recently viewed when the list should be automatic history based on actual openings rather than deliberate saves.
• Use saved view when the saved object is a reusable presentation or query configuration such as filters, columns, sort, grouping, or density.
• Use follow / subscribe when users want future update delivery rather than a saved item list.
• Use collection when users are intentionally building a named set with membership, sharing, ordering, notes, or batch actions beyond simple favorite state.
• Expose whether a favorite is personal, synced, shared, public, or counted toward popularity before the mark affects other people or recommendations.
• Keep favorite and unfavorite separate from delete, hide, archive, remove from recents, pin, watch, follow, and unsubscribe.
• Provide a Favorites list, filter, or search facet once favoriting is available so users can reliably retrieve marked items.
• Avoid favorites when users need ranked recommendations, task status, workflow assignment, or a canonical source of truth rather than personal preference.

Required States

• No favorites state with a path to favorite eligible items.
• Favoritable item state, favorited item state, favorite pending, unfavorite pending, and failed-save states.
• Favorites list or filter with item name, type, location, owner, scope, and last-known availability.
• Personal favorite, synced favorite, public or counted favorite, shared favorite, and policy-limited favorite states when those scopes exist.
• Duplicate-name, moved, deleted, archived, permission-lost, restricted, and unavailable favorite states.
• Mobile or narrow-screen state where favorite controls and item context remain reachable.

Interaction Contract

• Favoriting records a relationship between the user and the existing item without duplicating, moving, pinning, subscribing to, or changing the item.
• Unfavoriting removes only the favorite relationship and leaves the underlying item, recent history, pins, subscriptions, and saved views intact.
• A favorited item can be found again through a Favorites section, filter, shortcut, or saved-list page with the same identity used on the source item.
• Favorite state is visibly persistent wherever the same item appears, including lists, detail pages, search results, and mobile views.
• If favorites influence recommendations, popularity, or public counts, the product discloses that effect near the control or account setting.
• When a favorite becomes unavailable, the list explains the status and offers remove, request-access, open-location, or replace paths instead of dead links.
• Bulk favorite cleanup, import, or sync actions preserve user intent and do not silently change pins, subscriptions, collections, or recent history.

Implementation Checklist

• Model favorite state separately from pin order, recent history, saved view configuration, collection membership, watch or follow subscriptions, and item deletion.
• Store stable item IDs with type, location, owner, favorite scope, favorited time, and visibility or public-count behavior.
• Provide accessible favorite and unfavorite controls with selected state, text labels, and status messages for saves, failures, and removals.
• Add a Favorites destination, filter, or facet with empty, loading, duplicate-name, unavailable, and permission-limited states.
• Refresh item metadata in the favorite list and mark moved, deleted, archived, or restricted items before navigation.
• Respect account sync, private mode, managed accounts, public profile, recommendation, and popularity-count settings.
• Test long names, similar names, unavailable items, cross-device sync, public versus personal effects, keyboard access, touch targets, and unfavorite-not-delete copy.

Common Generated-UI Mistakes

• Using a star icon with no label or selected state.
• Treating favorites as pins, recents, subscriptions, saved searches, recommendations, ratings, or votes without explaining the effect.
• Removing, archiving, hiding, or deleting the item when users only meant to unfavorite it.
• Offering favorite buttons without any reliable Favorites list or filter.
• Leaking sensitive favorited item names across shared, public, or screen-shared surfaces.
• Automatically favoriting items based on recency, popularity, or algorithmic guesses.

Critique Questions

• What exactly changes when the user favorites this item: personal quick access, public count, recommendation input, or visible placement?
• Where can users reliably find all of their favorited items later?
• Can users unfavorite without deleting, unpinning, unsubscribing, or removing recent history?
• Is favorite state personal, synced across devices, shared with a team, public, or used by ranking systems?
• What happens when a favorite is moved, renamed, deleted, archived, duplicated, or permission-restricted?
• Would a pin, saved view, collection, follow, or recently viewed list better match the user's intent?