Professionalising Screen-Based Design - The Elements of User Experience (Book)

Elements of User Experience is a book that covers the process of developing a product, website or anything that will be used by someone. It addresses the 5 different steps (planes) that any designer should work to, to ensure that every knowable need of the consumer is covered but also that the aims of the business and the intended aim of the product/website in the first place is covered.

The Five Planes

This structure of planes I think will be a huge help in terms of developing my website or app as it will give me a better understanding of every step I need to take in order to meet the requirements and needs of both NSB and also the users.

A brief breakdown of each plane:

Strategy is essentially a combination of what you want to get out of the website or app as the business, like setting certain goals to achieve such as 'Sell 100 tickets a day'. But also what the users will want to get out of it such as being able to buy their tickets or plan their route with ease.

The scope plane covers all of the functions and features that will be included within the website and that will address any potential conflicts or hiccups with the product.

The Structure plane is a more abstract version of the above skeleton plane, and so will define how the users get to each different page. Whereas the Skeleton plane is more to do with the placement of the buttons that will allow the users to navigate the pages but also where the text and images that will be positioned.

Last but not least the Surface plane, this covers everything visual to do with the website, essentially what the user will see when presented with the website.

Each plane is equally as important as the other, because without any one of them the designers could lose sight of what's the most important of the whole project, such as the values of the company and needs of the user. And so this something I will keep in mind during the whole design process.