Review: The Elements Provide a Tool for Educating and Explaining

No aspect of a Web site's user experience should be left to chance. That's the overarching message in Jesse James Garrett's new book "The Elements of User Experience". A useful Web site is built by being explicit and deliberate. The author reminds readers that meeting technical requirements for a website is not the same as meeting user requirements. So then how does a Web development team meet this challenge? By following a layered or phased approach within the development process.

Inspired by a diagram created by the author, the book expands on the initial visual map developed by Garrett over two years ago. The diagram and the development process explained in this book is divided into five sections; strategy, scope, structure, skeleton, and surface. The book goes through each phase and offers a detail overview to the reader.

This book is an informative and useful tool that serves as a model and a resource for the Web development process. With only 173 pages, it is a quick read, it will take only a few hours of reading time... perhaps a train journey. Web development teams would find this book useful, from project managers, to developers, designers and information architects.

grace de la flor

Associated Link: Jesse James Garrett's website

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