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Software Behaviorby Joost van der Zwan
Index

Framework · Layered stack · from Chapter 1

Layers of Product Value

Shows how product value appears across surface, flow, logic, behavior, and strategy.
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The framework

Fig. · Layers of Product Value
  1. Surface: What the user sees and touches: screens, layout, hierarchy, components, copy, interaction states, affordances, motion, and visual clarity.
  2. Flow: How the user moves through the work: the sequence between actions, screens, decisions, states, and handoffs.
  3. Logic: The deterministic spine beneath the experience: rules, validations, conditions, calculations, constraints, dependencies, and edge cases.
  4. Behavior: What the system does over time, on whose authority, with what restraint: what it notices, infers, suggests, automates, delays, asks, hides, reveals, remembers, and reverses.
  5. Strategy: What is worth building at all, and why now: which problem the product takes, which it refuses, who it serves, and what future it makes possible.

Read down from the visible surface into the behavior beneath it.

  1. 01

    Surface

    What the user sees and touches: screens, layout, hierarchy, components, copy, interaction states, affordances, motion, and visual clarity.

  2. 02

    Flow

    How the user moves through the work: the sequence between actions, screens, decisions, states, and handoffs.

  3. 03

    Logic

    The deterministic spine beneath the experience: rules, validations, conditions, calculations, constraints, dependencies, and edge cases.

  4. 04

    Behavior

    What the system does over time, on whose authority, with what restraint: what it notices, infers, suggests, automates, delays, asks, hides, reveals, remembers, and reverses.

  5. 05

    Strategy

    What is worth building at all, and why now: which problem the product takes, which it refuses, who it serves, and what future it makes possible.

4 · Do

How to use it

Place recent product decisions at the layer they actually came from. The output is a layer placement audit that shows where your work is already operating.

5 · Save

The Product Architect · Layers of Product Value

Framework · Layered stack