Absolutely worth every penny and a spot on your bookcase.Excellent Resource This book is relevant to the designer/ developer and producer of many types of websites: educational, corporate and even ones of a more experimental nature.After having read Alan Cooper, Louis Rosenfeld and Steve Krug I wasn't sure I'd learn anything new about information design/ architecture from this book. I was wrong. It's clear that Garrett knows his subject inside out but just as important is the way that the book is structured. It's a pleasure to read. Another thing I appreciated was that his voice didn't get in the way of the information presented. Highly recommended.
The answer is that vast numbers of people who should know about these processes don't. While JJG's stacking diagram may be familiar to Information Architects and other user experience designers, it is virtually unknown to the other 95% of the organization that is responsible for selling, marketing, building, and/or maintaining web sites.
True to his words, Jesse James Garrett delivers a book that neither explains how to do anything, nor provides answers to technology questions about web sites. In fewer than 200 pages, Mr. Garrett does provide a whirlwind survey of the intricacies of interactive design for the web.
Mr. Garrett begins by promising that the book will take only a few hours to read, and he's pretty close to the mark. As I would have expected, the book's design helps keep his promise. The pages are well laid out with plenty of whitespace and supporting diagrams nicely illustrating his points; his language is clear, concise and direct; his presentation not only supports (and is guided by) the stacking diagram, each point logically follows from the last.
Within a few pages, it is very clear that Mr. Garrett did not write the book for practitioners already familiar with his three dimensional diagram. He is focused instead on those people who are not in the daily struggle of designing appropriate experiences for web site visitors. But that doesn't mean the book can't be used by well-heeled user experience designers. Practitioners will find the book an invaluable aid in their on-going evangelical efforts within their own organizations, or as part of their consultancies, as they explain the processes, methods and vocabulary of user experience design to those unfamiliar with this emerging discipline.
For those individuals, the book provides a clear and straightforward introduction to the very complicated and intertwined issues of designing engaging experiences for the web, whether they are "content" or "application" driven.
I, for one, will be recommending Mr. Garrett's book as a "must read" for everyone in my company.
* The surface plane - the series of web pages, made up of images and text.* The skeleton plane - the placement of the components of the pages: such as the buttons, textboxes and blocks of text.* The structure plane - a concrete expression of the abstract structure of the site. Concepts such as the placement of the interface elements as well as the definition as to how users get to the site.* The scope plane - the definition of how the components interact with each other.* The strategy plane - the description of the purpose of the site. What do the people running it want to get from it as well as what the users want to accomplish when they use it.
A color diagram of these levels can be found at http://www.jjg.net. This segmentation of the structure of a web site is a sound strategy for the development of quality, effective web sites. It is consistent with the proven methods of software development, where the project is split into generally distinct segments that are more manageable. Each of the levels is thoroughly explained as well as the circumstances where they overlap. I consider it an excellent description of the proper way to develop a site and recommend the book for all who have a site, are planning a new site or are in the process of reorganizing an existing one.