The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web and Beyond (2nd Edition) (Voices That Matter)

Description of the article « The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web and Beyond (2nd Edition) (Voices That Matter) »

User experience covers everything from business goals to button colours, and it's easy to lose track of how the parts fit together. The Elements of User Experience gives you a simple model that shows how.

What you'll learn

Jesse James Garrett breaks user experience into five planes, built from the abstract to the concrete: strategy, scope, structure, skeleton and surface. He explains what each plane involves, from user needs and requirements to information architecture, interaction design and visual design, and why decisions on lower planes constrain everything above them.

Who it's for

It's a classic introduction for beginners and a useful way for teams to talk about how UX work is divided. It's short and heavily illustrated, so you can read it in an evening.

This second edition dates from 2010, so its examples focus on websites rather than mobile apps. The model itself has aged well and is still widely taught.