Five Planes of UX - Chapter 1
Above: The Inciting Incident of the story. Setting the tone and voice - I chose to approach this task by using the analogy of a popular tv show to illustrate concepts of UX.
Overview
I was assigned to work with an Innovation Team that was focusing on Generative A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) - exploring what it can do, and how could it be leveraged to help with certain jobs in our area. The exploration extended into how could it be leveraged into UX Research. I was tasked with helping them understand the basics of UX; what are many of the factors we have to take into account, and in what order to we prioritize these elements. Holguin-five-planes-ux.pdf
I needed to provide a crash-course on what XD (Experience Design) and UCD (User-Experience Design). I didn’t want to just reference a book or an online source and tell them, “Hey, you all need to read this” - I wanted to help them absorb many concepts quickly. More importantly, I wanted them to walk away with a single artifact - something concise and simple.
Above: Based on Jesse James Garrett book “The Elements of User Experience”, I outline Five Planes of UX, the consist of Strategy, Scope, Structure, Skeleton, and Surface.
Conducting My Research
I had a week to pull information together and share with my team. My goals were to:
Make certain the information is understandable.
Make the information is retainable.
Make the experience delightful and memorable.
Clearly explain the layers of work involved in UX Design.
The irony is that I felt the need to “UX” the experience of understanding UX. This subject matter can have many tentacles, but fortunately there are plenty of resources available to reference. My focus was to compile the most useful information I could find, and tell a delightful story to educate my Engineering teammates about the make up of Experience Design.
Above: This Story Arc illustrates the basic parts of a story; Beginning, Initial Incident, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Resolution.
The Bones of a Story
Working with the basic elements presented in Jesse James Garrett’s book “The Elements of User Experience”, I wanted to share an aspect of this book using Analogy. Given I am part of this research effort to explore Generative A.I.,I thought about the fun I could have using a character from pop-culture to tell a story, using an infographic format. The reasons were:
It would immediately be recognizable for the demographic I was targeting.
The analogy lent itself well to this story-telling concept.
It would be fun storytelling and experimental.
I leverage a Story/Narrative Arc to help outline what needs to be explained. Components I call attention to in the Story Arc:
We have a hero that has a mission. He has “rules” or guidelines that must be followed.
The hero has a healthy skepticism and uncertainty of new technology like A.I.
The hero is asserting boundaries and explains the “right” way to do something.
The story addresses the possibility of working with A.I. as an Aid, rather than and intrusion.
Above: The Rising Action of this story is our hero explaining a better approach to a UX workflow.
This Is The Way
We can sometimes get fixated on a linear way of thinking, much like the familiar “waterfall” approach. But in the example above, we are adapting to a model closely related to Agile. It makes sense to adapt our workflow to what most of the software industry does, so that there is fluidity between developers and designers. We don’t jump into design based on inspiration of a cool idea - we have to act pragmatically. We layer our efforts, starting with Strategy, ending with Surface - and more importantly - they can overlap without compromising capacity or velocity of project work. It this exercise, we are looking to see if in a future-state, A.I. can eventually be leveraged to help us with some of these tasks.
Above: Stakeholders might see the collected research and findings as a precious cargo. This takes the form of a set of recommendations or outcomes.
UX Research and AI
There has been a lot of chatter about his subject matter, and for good reason. The analogy of assimilating our UX Research with A.I. can be an attractive one, or even a concerning thought for others. The tools are available today, and are maturing quickly. Within the public domain many have explored and experimented with the possibilities of what can be achieved, and the potential is astounding. What is of concern is what becomes of the data as it is being analyzed and measured by A.I.? What about customer data, and proprietary company data? What partitions or firewalls can be put in place to assure us that A.I. will keep private data “private”, and not leverage that data to help other companies working in the same industry - thereby assisting competitors solve for problems by using proprietary data borrowed from the competitor? What safeguard can be put into place to guarantee security?
These are big questions that really need to be addressed and explored. But the potential marriage of UX and AI is exciting. That is something that my team all agreed on.
Conclusion
The goal of this artifact was to:
Make certain the information is understandable.
Make the information is retainable.
Make the experience delightful and memorable.
Clearly explain the layers of work involved in UX Design.
Upon delivery of this artifact to my team, it met all the criteria they were looking for. What some believed would be a difficult learning curve about aspects of UX, quickly became a joyful experience where members of our team would smile and ask questions, as well as processing key points and information in a fraction of the amount of time compared to a formal powerpoint presentation that would test even the most patient of our teammates.
Storytelling is a tool - it can make difficult subject matter palatable an even enjoyable.
Artifact designed by Michael Holguin
HolguinUX@gmail.com
Source: Jesse James Garrett, Copyright © 2011.The Elements of User Experience, Second Edition
Source: The Mandalorian™ references borrowed from Disney+
Source: LEGO Star Wars references borrowed from LEGO Star Wars™
Source: “This is the way” borrowed from The Mandalorian™ TV Series on Disney+