In his book The Elements of User Experience, Jesse James Garrett provides a conceptual framework for user experience design that encompasses five planes:
- Surface (images and text the user sees)
- Skeleton (placement of elements)
- Structure (interaction design and information architecture)
- Scope (range of content and features)
- Strategy (organizational goals and user needs)
There are dependencies between these five planes, and these dependencies impact design choices.
I’ve always liked Garrett’s framework. I think he captures the essential components of UX, and organizes them into a visual structure that can be used to drive the design process. Easily understandable frameworks are always helpful.
There is a wide range of heuristics, methods, and techniques that can be applied to the design process within any given plane of Garrett’s model. But his framework allows practitioners who may have different specialties (graphic design, content production, marketing, IA, etc.) to develop a shared understanding of the overall process and an appreciation for the interdependencies of their work.
I also enjoyed Garrett’s discussion of different architectural approaches to structuring content. I thought he made some important points about the distinctions between top-down and bottom-up architectures. He explained that top-down approaches are driven by strategic concerns, and can sometimes gloss over important content features. Bottom-up approaches, on the other hand, are tailored to site functionality or content, but can make it difficult to accommodate future changes.