Elements of User Experience
Elements of User Experience
by: Jesse James Garrett
Jesse James Garrett tells us that his book is not a how-to book in the very first line of his introduction. It’s not about technology, either, he says, and we can except to see absolute no code throughout the book. Instead, this book focuses on the big picture.
When it comes to creating the absolute best user experience for the user, Garrett lays out five elements that together, if assiduously integrated, are greater than the sum of their parts. He places these elements in a model of “planes” that provide a conceptual framework for talking about (and tackling) user experience in web development. Since all the elements are equally important, I am going to briefly discuss each.
The surface plane, and the most concrete of the elements, is what the user sees when they pull up a website or mobile application. There are 2 qualities that a project must possess on the surface:
First, it should follow a smooth flow. Second, it should give users a “guided tour” of the possibilities available to them without overwhelming them. To measure this, he suggests using an eye tracking test.
Beneath that surface is the skeleton plane. This plane dictates where buttons, text, images, and tabs are placed on the page. Basically, it is the layout of the page. Garrett further divides this element into interface design (the website doing things), navigation design (getting places on the site), and information design (how ideas are communicated).
The skeleton is a concrete framework of the structure of the site. This element seems a little ambiguous to me but essentially it tackles the large-scale issues of architecture and information (interaction design and information architecture). This is the site structure from a bird’s eye view and it defines the way the main functions of a site fit together.
The scope is the decided upon features that the site or app will contain. This is when developers need to decide which features are necessary and beneficial for the user. This element poses a problem that I can personally relate to. In the initial stages of working on a project, features keep getting added because (a) everyone is motivated and excited and (b) technology is cool and everyone wants their site (0r app) to feature the latest and greatest. Then, what happens is that these said features slowly pile up and before you know it the scope of the project is much more complex that you initially planned for and you are in over your head in terms of development. This is how deadlines and budgets are blown through. A better approach is to save extra features for later versions and updates of the project.
Finally, the last element is determining the strategy of the site. This is the most abstract elements and maybe the most important, at least in the initial stages of growth. The strategy should answer two questions: what the user wants to get out of the site and what the developers want to get out of the site. These two questions should be revisited during the evaluation of every element of the design project.
Each plane depends on the plane below it and plane by plane decisions become more specific. However, throughout the entire process the developer must constantly take the user into the account. Everything the user experiences should be a conscious decision on the developer’s part. This book is a must read if you are working in groups. While it may not be a fun read, it is beyond helpful with project planning and providing a language for reference.
Get the book here!
