Obstruction
A dark pattern where a process is made more difficult than it needs to be to discourage certain behavior. Recognizing the harm of this practice is important to design straightforward user processes.
A dark pattern where a process is made more difficult than it needs to be to discourage certain behavior. Recognizing the harm of this practice is important to design straightforward user processes.
The cues and hints that users follow to find information online, based on perceived relevance and usefulness. Important for designing intuitive navigation and content structures that align with user expectations.
A cognitive bias where people overestimate the importance of information that is readily available. Essential for designers to understand and mitigate how easily accessible information can disproportionately influence decisions.
User-Centered Design (UCD) is an iterative design approach that focuses on understanding users' needs, preferences, and limitations throughout the design process. Crucial for creating products that are intuitive, efficient, and satisfying for the intended users.
Principle of Least Astonishment (POLA) is a design guideline stating that interfaces should behave in a way that users expect to avoid confusion. Crucial for enhancing user experience and reducing the learning curve in digital products.
The tendency to attribute positive qualities to one's own choices and downplay the negatives, enhancing post-decision satisfaction. Useful for understanding user satisfaction and designing experiences that reinforce positive decision outcomes.
A common pattern of eye movement where users scan web content in an "F" shape, focusing on the top and left side of the page. Crucial for designing web content that aligns with natural reading patterns to improve engagement.
A statistical distribution where most occurrences take place near the mean, and fewer occurrences happen as you move further from the mean, forming a bell curve. Crucial for data analysis and understanding variability in user behavior and responses.
A reading pattern where users scan a page in horizontal stripes, focusing on headings and subheadings. Important for structuring content in a way that facilitates quick scanning and information retrieval.
A cognitive bias where individuals underestimate their own abilities and performance relative to others, believing they are worse than average. Important for understanding self-perception biases among designers and designing systems that support accurate self-assessment.
A practice of performing testing activities in the production environment to monitor and validate the behavior and performance of software in real-world conditions. Crucial for ensuring the stability, reliability, and user satisfaction of digital products in a live environment.
The tendency to overestimate the duration or intensity of the emotional impact of future events. Important for understanding user expectations and satisfaction.
A tendency for respondents to answer questions in a manner that is not truthful or accurate, often influenced by social desirability or survey design. Important for understanding and mitigating biases in survey and research data.
The practice of identifying and analyzing search terms that users enter into search engines, used to inform content strategy and SEO. Essential for understanding user intent and optimizing content to meet search demand.
Numeronym for the word "Personalization" (P + 13 letters + N), tailoring a product, service, or experience to meet the individual preferences, needs, or behaviors of each user. Important for enhancing user satisfaction and engagement.
The experience of noticing something for the first time and then frequently encountering it shortly after, also known as frequency illusion. Important for understanding user perception and cognitive biases in information processing.
Research aimed at exploring and identifying new opportunities, needs, and ideas to inform the design process. Essential for discovering user insights and guiding innovative design solutions.
Also known as the 68-95-99.7 Rule, it states that for a normal distribution, nearly all data will fall within three standard deviations of the mean. Important for understanding the distribution of data and making predictions about data behavior in digital product design.
The practice of measuring and analyzing data about digital product adoption, usage, and performance to inform business decisions. Crucial for making data-driven decisions that improve product performance and user satisfaction.
The practice of designing products that evoke specific emotional responses to enhance user experience and engagement. Crucial for creating deeply engaging and satisfying user experiences.
A cognitive bias where people ignore general statistical information in favor of specific information. Critical for designers to use general statistical information to improve decision-making accuracy and avoid bias.
The ability of a UI component to adjust its appearance and behavior based on different contexts or devices. Crucial for responsive design and ensuring a consistent user experience.
The use of statistical techniques and algorithms to analyze historical data and make predictions about future outcomes. Important for optimizing marketing strategies and anticipating customer needs.
A psychological phenomenon where individuals are perceived as more likable if they make a mistake, provided they are generally competent. Important for understanding human perception and leveraging relatability in marketing and leadership.
A strategic research process that involves evaluating competitors' products, services, and market positions to identify opportunities and threats. Essential for informing product strategy, differentiating offerings, and gaining a competitive advantage in the market.
A principle stating that a system should be liberal in what it accepts and conservative in what it sends, meaning it should handle user input flexibly while providing clear, consistent output, similar to the principle of fault tolerance. Essential for designing robust and user-friendly interfaces that accommodate a wide range of user inputs and behaviors while maintaining reliability and clarity in responses.
Business-to-Consumer (B2C), a business model where products or services are sold directly to individual consumers. Essential for understanding consumer markets and developing direct marketing strategies.
Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) is a language for specifying business process behaviors based on web services. Important for defining and automating complex business processes in digital product workflows.
The principle that elements in a digital interface maintain consistent appearance, position, and behavior across different pages and states to help users maintain orientation and familiarity. Important for creating a stable and predictable user experience, reducing disorientation and enhancing usability.
The rate at which employees leave a company and are replaced by new hires, often used as a measure of organizational health and stability. Essential for understanding workforce dynamics and designing strategies to improve employee retention.
The study of how people acquire knowledge, skills, and behaviors through experience, practice, and instruction. Useful for creating educational content and interactive tutorials that enhance user learning.
A process by which users are automatically enrolled into a service or program, often used to increase participation rates. Useful for increasing user engagement and participation in services and programs.
Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) is a machine learning technique that uses human input to guide the training of AI models. Essential for improving the alignment and performance of AI systems in real-world applications.
A cognitive bias where people see patterns in random data. Important for designers to improve data interpretation and avoid false conclusions based on perceived random patterns.
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is the study of designing interfaces and interactions between humans and computers. It ensures that digital products are user-friendly, efficient, and satisfying.
A pricing strategy that offers a middle option with substantial value at a moderate price, often perceived as the best deal by users. Useful for driving sales by presenting a balanced choice that appears more attractive relative to higher and lower-priced options.
A business strategy where the product itself is the primary driver of customer acquisition, retention, and expansion, often through user experience and engagement. Essential for leveraging the product to drive business growth and achieve market success.
A specific form of banner blindness where users ignore content placed in the right-hand rail of a web page. Important for optimizing web page layouts and placing critical information where it will be seen.
A technology and research method that measures where and how long a person looks at various areas on a screen or interface. Crucial for understanding user attention and improving interface design.
The origins of visitors to a website, such as search engines, direct visits, social media, and referrals from other sites. Crucial for understanding and optimizing website traffic and marketing strategies.
A psychological phenomenon where people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks. Crucial for designing engaging experiences that leverage task incompletion to maintain user interest.
A performance testing method that evaluates the system's behavior and stability over an extended period under a high load. Essential for identifying memory leaks and ensuring the reliability and performance of digital products under prolonged use.
Specific roles assigned to HTML elements to define their purpose and behavior in an accessible manner. Crucial for improving the accessibility and usability of web applications.
A phenomenon where users perceive greater value in a service or product if they believe more effort was involved in its creation or delivery. Important for enhancing perceived value and user satisfaction.
The phenomenon where higher-priced products are perceived to be of higher quality, regardless of the actual quality. Useful for understanding consumer perceptions and designing effective pricing strategies.
A psychological phenomenon where people develop a preference for things simply because they are familiar with them. Crucial for designing user experiences that leverage familiarity to increase user comfort and satisfaction.
The percentage of users who continue to use a product or service over a specified period, indicating user loyalty and engagement. Essential for assessing the effectiveness of user retention strategies and improving user experience.
The process of tailoring a product or experience to meet the individual needs and preferences of users. Essential for enhancing user engagement and satisfaction by delivering relevant experiences.
A metric that measures how engaged users are with a product, often based on usage frequency, feature adoption, and user feedback. Crucial for assessing user satisfaction and identifying areas for improvement in the product experience.
The ability of a product or service to keep users engaged and returning over time, often measured by metrics such as retention rate. Crucial for evaluating user loyalty and the long-term success of a product.
A fictional character created to represent a user type that might use a site, brand, or product in a similar way, guiding design decisions. Essential for user-centered design, ensuring that products meet the needs of target users.
The process of identifying unusual patterns or outliers in data that do not conform to expected behavior. Crucial for detecting fraud, errors, or other significant deviations in various contexts.
A product that significantly changes the market or industry by introducing innovative features or a new business model. Important for understanding market dynamics and identifying opportunities for innovation.
A psychological phenomenon where repeated exposure to a stimulus leads to an increased preference for it. Useful for designing marketing and user engagement strategies that increase familiarity and preference.
Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is a methodology that uses visual modeling to support system requirements, design, analysis, and validation activities throughout the development lifecycle. Essential for managing complex systems, improving communication among stakeholders, and enhancing the overall quality and efficiency of systems engineering processes.
A bias that occurs when researchers' expectations influence the outcome of a study. Crucial for designing research methods that ensure objectivity and reliability.
An experimental design where subjects are paired based on certain characteristics, and then one is assigned to the treatment and the other to the control group. Important for reducing variability and improving the accuracy of experimental results.
A research process used to identify and understand the underlying needs of users to inform the design of products and services. Essential for creating user-centered designs that address real user needs.
A strategy where an additional, less attractive option is introduced to make other pricing options look more appealing, often steering customers towards a particular choice. Important for guiding user decisions and increasing the perceived value of targeted pricing tiers.
The persistence of misinformation in memory and influence on reasoning, even after it has been corrected. Crucial for understanding and mitigating the impact of misinformation in design and communication.