Jesse James Garrett

A user experience designer based in San Francisco, California, Jesse James Garrett was co-founder of Adaptive Path, a user experience strategy and design consulting firm. He first became prominent in the web design and development community with the publication of his diagram titled "The Elements of User Experience" in early 2000, which was later made into a book in 2002. "The Elements of User Experience" is a conceptual model of user-centered design. A second edition of the book was published in 2010.

Although originally intended for use in web design, the Elements model was subsequently adopted in other fields such as software development and industrial design. Garrett also created the first standardized notation for interaction design, known as the Visual Vocabulary. He grew up in Florida, then lived in Los Angeles for five years before moving to San Francisco in 1999. He attended the University of Florida.

In a February 2005 paper, he coined the term Ajax to describe the technology behind emerging services like Google Maps and Google Suggest, as well as the resulting user experience that made it possible to eliminate reloading the whole page. Garrett thought of the term when he realized the need for a shorthand term to represent the suite of technologies he was proposing to a client. He co-founded the Information Architecture Institute, and in May 2006 was awarded Wired Magazine's Rave Award in the field of technology.

In 2008, he designed the Aurora concept for a future Web browser for the Mozilla Corporation. His closing keynote at the 2009 Information Architecture Summit (IA Summit 2009), known as the "Memphis Plenary," created controversy and debate within the user experience community. Garrett's project "iWitness" was one of the winners of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation's 2011 Knight News Challenge media innovation competition.

His works included "ia/recon", an essay on the evolution of the information architecture field, and "The Nine Pillars of Successful Web Teams", a conceptual model similar to Elements for team structures and processes. His essays appeared in New Architect, Boxes and Arrows, and Digital Web Magazine. He lived with his wife, Rebecca, in San Francisco.