Design by Elle

The Elements of User Experience was written by Jesse James Garrett to expand on his diagram of the five planes of user experience in web development and the relationships between them. The five planes of the diagram are:

• Strategy plane – business strategy and business goals
• Scope plane – various features and functions and requirements to be provided
• Structure plane – conceptual models and structure
• Skeleton plane – arrangement and optimisation of elements on the site
• Surface plane – visual design

This book is designed to be read in just a few hours and to cover the foundations of the field. Well, it definitely does what it was set out to achieve. This book will not teach you how to develop sites in a certain way but what questions to ask and what needs to be considered when developing websites with the end user in mind.

The book’s language is very clear and communicates its message very well. It also provides some very good resources where further information can be found (if you find this subject interesting and would like to learn some more).

The book’s most important value is in establishing a vocabulary for the field of user experience that hasn’t been established beforehand. This vocabulary can assist with communication between web development team members as well as business owners and stakeholders.

I think the message that we should take away from this book is that as long as we consciously think of the end user throughout the development of the website and as long as the five planes of the user experience are developed together (and not separately), we can ensure that the site will work well to fulfil the business strategic goals as well the needs of its users to become an asset to the business.