The Elements of User Experience ( and 8 elements of my experience reading it)

Image source: Google Books

Reading books and getting updated is an essential part of any career. In this post, I'm going to talk specifically about a book for the interactive media professionals. It's actually a must-read. If you're planning on starting a career or just started an interactive media career, please read "The elements of user experience", written by Jesse James Garrett.
This book has been a reference in the industry since it was published 10 years ago.
The author has also released an updated version in 2010.

When you have a personal experience to suggest a book, that's even more solid, right? So, I have mine to share with you. I have carried this book and read it for the last 2 months, as a great companion for my UX classes, in the graduate certificate program in which I am studying.

For this reason, I will comment important passages of the book here with you, that will form 8 takeaways that interactive media professionals should consider:

1) On page 19, there it goes a very important definition: what is user-centered design. In the author's words, it's "the practice of creating engaging, efficient user experiences". In your career, you must make it a number one goal!

                                  Image source: http://jisclamp.mimas.ac.uk/2013/11/05/personas-job-stories-and-simple-planes-wireframing-a-lamp-interface/

2) From pages 21 to 23, the author introduces the concept of The Five Planes. It's basically the whole set of decisions that dictates how the site will look, behave and it allows you to do. The Five Planes are:

The Surface Plane: the series of web pages, with images and text, that you can click and perform different actions.
The Skeleton Plane: beneath the surface is the skeleton of the site, with its buttons, tabs, photos, and blocks of text.
The Structure Plane: the most abstract structure of the site. It dictates for example which categories will be part of an online bookstore. For a better understanding, the skeleton is what defines the arrangement of navigational items that allows the users to actually browse these categories that the Structure Plane defined.
The Scope Plane: so a website has various functions and features. Exactly how they fit together is what we have just seen: The Structure Plan. While those actual functions and features...are The Scope Plan. If a birding experience website will offer a way to the users watch birds live across the planet or not...that's part of the Scope Plane!
The Strategy Plane: ok, but what determines which will be the scope of the website? The Strategy Plane, the strategy of the site. What people running the website want from it, what the users may want from it.

If you understand that, you are on the way to create terrific websites!

3) On page 35, the author explains that job titles don't say much, but how an organization deals with user experience issues. If an organization often delegates too much, but no one actually responsible for the full user experience of your website, it can cause a lot of harm to the website's future. When you get hired, a good tip is to take this responsibility with you.

Image source: http://blogs.verdantis.com/different-success-metrics-led-mdg-dq-business-led-dq-mdg/

4) It's not possible to reach success if you don't know in which moment something is considered a success. For this reason, on page 43, Garrett explains the importance of defining what will be the success metrics for your website: what indicators will mean that the team is meeting its objectives and the user's needs. If you are a professional just graduating in the moment you read this post, think about it: being able to follow closely those success metrics and guaranteeing that you will perform an important part to reach that success, and you will write an important (and successful!) chapter in your career!


5) On pages 63 and 64, more specifically about the Scope Plane again, what the author says is: be sure to know what you're building in a website/app/new product, so you also know what you are not building.That's the importance of documenting requirements. It doesn't matter if a feature "looks nice": it must align with the strategic objectives of the project. As an interactive media professional, you will find a way to hold your emotions "say" and stick to what the strategy screams out loud (well, maybe it's you screaming as well!).

6) On page 86, you will finally arrive at the Structure Plane in more detail, and that signalizes the moment in which the concerns leave the "abstract arena of strategy" and lands directly in the concrete factors that shape the user experience. Interaction design is part of it, for example. It describes possible user behavior and how the system will "accommodate and respond to that behavior", in Garret's words.
Got it?

Image source: https://eutykhiadotnet.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/plane-skel.jpg

7) On page 114, here we go for the Skeleton Plane! If a site will work based on the Structure Plane, it needs to know what form that functionality will take. It's the details. Now we're talking about interface design, navigation design, information design, how information will actually be presented. Take those elements, make them work together as an orchestra, and you will be a valuable professional for your organization.

8) Finally, we go to the top of the five-plane model: The Surface Plane! Now we're talking practical design, the one that will take a public shape to fulfill the goals of all the other four planes!
We're talking visual! But it's not only a matter of aesthetics: don't get confused by that. In page 143, the author reminds us that "each one has a different taste, and everybody has a different idea of what constitutes a visually appealing design".
The trick here is: don't go only for the aesthetics. Check how they work. How effective the design support the objectives defined by each of the lower planes?

When you "rock" that, you can consider yourself ready to be successful on the market.

The interactive media professional and a world only populated by one person

Image source: http://aum.ca/workplaceethics.ca/canstockphoto1669220cropRBGbluecorrect.jpg

Are all the world's best inventions and creations only made by one person? And this person is immortal? Our world is no longer populated by 7 billion people, but only this one single person living beside Lake Ontario, lonely watching as times goes by?
Well, that scenario would only be possible in some movie director's mind, as part of one of those apocalyptic movies. In the real world, this are not like that. We've seen human beings of any gender, sex, age accomplish some of the world's most amazing inventions, creations, market-changing theories and all else we could imagine. Now, please carry this scenario to your workplace. Consider yourself as as interactive media professional. You have just arrived for your first day at the new job in that great digital agency you've been dreaming to be hired to. You want to help redesign the website for your favourite burger chain. But there's only one problem. You are an alien. You are not from this world. The world is only populated by one person. The name of that person is Unequell.
Unequell, or Une, as he auto-nicknamed himself, is the only existing human being ever in this planet. He built that agency alone, and he built the whole city alone. He built TTC. He built Tim Horton's. He built the CN Tower. And he was the founder of Toronto Maple Leafs. He's everywhere in the hockey rink. He has founded the Pittsburg Penguins and all other hockey teams as well. He shoots and defends. He passes and he intercepts. He's the referee.
You see? That would simply be impossible to work in a digital agency founded, directed and employing only this Unequell guy to do all the stuff. So, if that digital agency wants to continue being the reference to you and to many others, what does it need to do? It needs to know that the world is not only populated by Unequell, a 35-year old, white Catholic swedish guy who was claiming that the whole world was...himself. And also...in consequence, the agency was himself. That agency need to know that it's gotta hire catholics and muslims, man and women, young professionals, and experienced ones, to be able to manage egos and lack of experience. It needs to welcome that great blind musician who will be able to create some amazing original soundtracks to the company's portfolio of clients who demand original music to its media experiences on apps, websites, events, crossmedia storytelling efforts and it goes on and on.
We call it equity in the workplace. And Unequell will need it. Your great digital agency will need it to sustain all its status as a great place to work. If it wants to be part someday of Forbes list of Best Places to Work, it needs to provide an outstanding work environment and company culture for its employees.

Image source: Forbes.com

Air BNB, not satisfied in topping Forbes' ranking, also topped the Glassdoor ranking. And for those of you who still haven't heard from Glassdoor, its ranking reflects itself as a business: it's based entirely on employee's feedback.

Image source: Glassdoor.com

The interactive media professional who arrives in that great digital agency where Unequell is struggling to adequate himself, will have to understand the we're watching a media revolution. All audiences these days, and it doesn't matter which target audiences they're part of, are claiming for equality, for honesty when creating or transmitting information, for sincere and human pieces of communication. So, it doesn't matter if you are a designer or a copywrighter. You must be able to fit in that workplace. You will need to be able to work with a fellow swedish guy, a pregnant woman who's leaving her job to give birth in 15 days and will stay out for one year, and that buddhist guy who need to meditate every friday afternoon for 3 hours longer than the usual days.

Unequell's world only populated by himself does not exist, but the world dominated by ethical leadership exists. The world, in which he will only be able to create an award-winning campaign for that burger chain, will have the company of yourself (there you go!) and that 22 year-old single mom that just arrived in the agency last month, for Unequell's initial despair. And for Unequell's best of lucks in the future, as that single mom just happened to be the most amazing talent in UX design in the whole agency since day one.

Unequell will have to read the book "7 Lenses: Learning the Principles and Practices of Ethic Leadership", by author Linda Fisher Thornton.

That will be an journey for ethic in the workplace that you will all benefit from. Not only because the laws are telling you to do so. But because you are a leader and you need to be ahead. You need to be part of this ever-changing world that we are facing now. And as an interactive media professional, you and Unequell will need that even more. As all our decisions are in the publics eye to be judged, every day.

6 Great Reasons To Launch a Career in Interactive Media

Does your father always buzz in your head that you should learn coding and become the next Bill Gates? Or is it a great passion for videogames that moves you when thinking of a career?
There are many reasons why you should think on launching a career in interactive media.

Here are 6 reasons that we consider great ones for you to become a interactive media professional:

1. You're probably going to work with what you love to do.

Via Games Daily News

If you're into Minecraft for the last 3 years and thought it would be a nightmare to stop dedicating your life to videogames, a career in interactive media can be the one for you. One of the professions you can choose in this industry is "video game designer". Or "video game programmer", which pays even better.

2. There are jobs in the market for you

Via Reed

When you think that there are so many different professions in this industry, such as UX Designer, social media manager, programmer, graphic designer, and that those jobs are full of opportunities for you to grab, it's a good thing to hear. Success will rely on many other reasons, but that's some good news, eh?

3. Your creativity must be good for something!

Via GGVogue

You were always the creative guy in the house, right? And even though your parents may have told you that you should stop writing those crazy song that would not take you anywhere ( I hope they didn't say that, but just in case...), writing a video game soundtrack writer can be your career in the future. And well, you may want to listen what this video game audio freelancer has to say.

4. You'll be able to do whatever goes in your mind!

Via Hongkiat

There are so many problems out there you would like to solve. Or maybe so many thing you'd like to accomplish. Well, whatever you may think of, if you decide to launch a programmer career, you can use your skills to create some new app. Or solve a huge global problem. Or just write a book, combined with programming, that will result in an interactive book. Exciting, don't you think? The world is yours to create.

5. You don't want to stop learning

Via Zero Designs

Can you throw back your memories and remember how things were designed when you were born? Probably you have gone past some photos of the past and sneaked into very old school logos and designs that you twist the nose for, right? If you launch a career as a graphic designer, there will always be something new and exciting to learn, so you can always deliver modern logos, and be engaged in new trends to be a great professional.


6. Stop the train, I wanna change the world!

Via Creative Bloq

Ok, you love design, but you also want to change the world. If sustainability and environment is not for you and you still want to be a designer, you can be a UX designer and help the change the world. Well, you can help transform the real life of so many people. You can change how people take their daily train back home. Or how they get in touch with their relatives abroad. You can actually change the world. Or someone's world.

Why don't you take a look now on how emerging trends are impacting those interactive media professional's careers?