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In The Elements of User Experience, Jesse James Garrett talks about how the user experience is “the experience the product creates for the people who use it in the real world” (p. 6). It’s all about how simple the product is and how easy it is for users to find what they need to find when searching throughout.

Let’s talk mainly about a product such as a website. Websites are used throughout each day into the night; websites are always being used. Users must be able to interact with a product, such as a website, on a level where the user is able to understand what it being shown within the site as a whole. If users cannot determine how to navigate within, then it is not an effective website.

Aesthetics

Another thing to think about is the aesthetics of a site. When creating a website, you want to keep in mind the looks and how it may attract different users. No one wants to look through a boring website. If a user were to go through a website that was not pleasing to the eye, then he or she may choose to return to your competition’s website instead. The most important thing to think about is how to design a site that is pleasing to the eye yet not too overbearing with its aesthetics.

Effective Content

Let’s say your site has the majority of content within the different links, but not any products to be sold. Then another important thing for you to consider is “[communicating] that information as effectively as possible” (p. 12).

The Surface Plane, Skeleton Plane, Structure Plane, Scope Plane, and Strategy Plane are the five different elements that make up a full website. Garrett talks about how each of these planes all rely on the each other to form a decent website. They “provide a conceptual framework for talking about user experience problems and the tools we use to solve them” (p. 21). This is just one of the many things to think about when creating your own user friendly website.

Your Thoughts

What do you think is one of the better ways to lay out a website? Have you ever produced a website that needed its user friendliness changed?