The ease with which users can quickly find and understand information on a webpage or document, often enhanced by design elements like headings, bullet points, and short paragraphs. Crucial for improving user experience and ensuring that content is accessible and easy to navigate.
The Principle of Exemplars is an information architecture guideline that uses representative examples to illustrate content categories. Crucial for enhancing user understanding and facilitating content discovery.
The practice and science of classification, often used to organize content and information. Essential for improving findability and usability in information systems.
The path or sequence of actions users follow based on information scent to find their desired information. Crucial for understanding user behavior and optimizing content discovery paths.
The organization of content in a way that prioritizes and structures information according to its importance. Crucial for ensuring that users can easily find and understand information.
A navigation system that groups related links or content into clusters for easier access. Important for enhancing user experience by simplifying access to related information.
A cognitive bias where users believe they have explored all available content, even when more is present. Important for designing interfaces that clearly indicate the presence of additional content.
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 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.
Common reading patterns users follow when scanning web content, such as the F-pattern, where users read across the top and then scan down the left side. Important for designing layouts that align with natural reading behaviors, improving content engagement and usability.
The practice of linking one page of a website to another page on the same website, improving navigation, user experience, and SEO. Essential for enhancing website structure, user engagement, and search engine optimization.
The arrangement of information in a way that prioritizes the most important content, guiding users through the information in a logical order. Crucial for creating clear and navigable interfaces that enhance user experience.
A usability technique used to evaluate the findability and labeling of topics in a website's structure by having participants find specific items in a simplified text version of the site. Crucial for improving information architecture and ensuring users can navigate a website effectively.
A method for organizing information based on five categories: category, time, location, alphabet, and continuum. Useful for creating clear and effective information architectures.
The process of collecting, analyzing, and reporting aggregate data about which pages a website visitor visits and in what order. Essential for understanding user behavior and improving website navigation and content.
The structural design of information environments, organizing and labeling content to support usability and findability. Essential for creating intuitive and navigable digital products.
Location, Alphabet, Time, Category, and Hierarchy (LATCH) is a framework for categorizing information. Useful for creating clear and intuitive information structures in digital products.
An approach to information architecture that begins with high-level structures and breaks them down into detailed components. Helps in creating a clear and organized framework from the outset, ensuring consistency and coherence.
The theory that users search for information in a manner similar to animals foraging for food, aiming to maximize value while minimizing effort. Important for designing efficient and user-centered information retrieval systems.
Research focused on understanding and improving information architecture (IA), ensuring that information is logically and intuitively organized for users. Crucial for optimizing the organization and accessibility of information.
A method of categorizing information in more than one way to enhance findability and user experience. Crucial for improving navigation, search, and overall usability of complex information systems.
A reading pattern where users quickly scan for specific markers or keywords within the content. Important for optimizing content for quick search and retrieval.
Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) is a set of attributes that enhance the accessibility of web content for people with disabilities. Essential for making web applications more usable and inclusive.
A design flaw where users mistakenly believe they have reached the end of the content due to a misleading visual cue. Crucial for ensuring content is properly signposted to avoid user confusion and ensure thorough exploration.
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.
The ease with which users can find new features or content within a product. Essential for enhancing user engagement and product usability.
An approach to information architecture that starts with the details and builds up to a comprehensive structure. Useful for designing flexible and detailed systems that can adapt to user needs.
Specific attributes used to enhance the accessibility of web content and applications by providing additional information to assistive technologies. Crucial for making dynamic web content more accessible to users with disabilities.
The Principle of Front Doors is an information architecture guideline that acknowledges multiple entry points into a website or system. Crucial for ensuring that all entry points provide a coherent and navigable experience.
A dark pattern where advertisements are disguised as other types of content or navigation to trick users into clicking on them. Awareness of this tactic is crucial to maintain transparency and prevent misleading users with disguised content.
A framework used in graphic and web design to organize content in a structured and consistent manner. Essential for creating balanced and readable layouts.
A user research technique where participants organize information into categories to inform information architecture and design. Essential for creating intuitive information architectures and improving user experience.
The percentage of visitors to a website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page. Important for understanding user engagement and the effectiveness of a website's content and design.
The Principle of Disclosure is an information architecture guideline that promotes revealing information progressively as users need it. Crucial for managing complexity and preventing information overload.
ARIA attributes that define additional characteristics of elements, such as roles and relationships. Important for enhancing the accessibility and usability of web applications.
The Principle of Choices is an information architecture guideline that emphasizes providing users with meaningful options to navigate and interact with a system. Crucial for enhancing user experience by ensuring users can easily find what they need without being overwhelmed.
The ability to navigate through a web page or application using keyboard keys instead of a mouse. Important for enhancing accessibility and providing an alternative way to interact with content.
Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust (POUR) are the four main principles of web accessibility. These principles are essential for creating inclusive digital experiences that can be accessed and used by people with a wide range of abilities and disabilities.
The tendency for people to prefer things that are easy to think about and understand. Important for designing user interfaces that are intuitive and easy to use.
Knowledge Organization System (KOS) refers to a structured framework for organizing, managing, and retrieving information within a specific domain or across multiple domains. Essential for improving information findability, enhancing semantic interoperability, and supporting effective knowledge management in digital environments.
The consistent spacing of text and elements in a design to create a harmonious and readable layout. Crucial for improving readability and visual appeal in design.
A design principle that involves using relative size to indicate the importance of elements, creating visual hierarchy and focus. Crucial for guiding user attention and creating effective visual communication.
A behavior where users repeatedly bounce back and forth between a search engine results page and individual search results. Important for identifying issues in search result relevancy and user satisfaction.
Hardware and software designed to assist people with disabilities in using computers and digital content. Essential for understanding and designing for a diverse range of user needs.
Also known as Magical Number 7 +/- 2, a theory in cognitive psychology that states the average number of objects an individual can hold in working memory is about seven. Crucial for designing user interfaces that align with human cognitive limitations.
A Gestalt principle that states that objects that are similar in appearance are perceived as being more related than objects that are dissimilar. Essential for creating visually cohesive and intuitive designs.
Responsive Web Design (RWD) is an approach to web design that makes web pages render well on a variety of devices and window or screen sizes. Essential for creating flexible, adaptive web experiences that maintain functionality and aesthetics across different platforms and devices.
A Gestalt principle where elements that are located within the same closed region are perceived as being grouped together. Essential for creating designs that are easily understood and visually organized.
The arrangement of visual elements in a way that signifies their importance, guiding users' attention to the most critical parts of a design. Essential for creating effective and intuitive user interfaces that enhance usability and user experience.
The ease with which visual information can be processed and understood by the viewer. Important for creating intuitive and accessible interfaces.
A Gestalt principle stating that elements that are visually connected are perceived as more related than elements with no connection. Essential for creating designs that effectively group related elements.
A Gestalt principle that describes the tendency of the human visual system to perceive lines or patterns that follow a smooth, continuous path rather than a disjointed or abrupt one. Essential for creating designs that guide the user's eye smoothly and logically.
The concept that humans have a finite capacity for attention, influencing how they perceive and interact with information. Crucial for designing user experiences that are not overwhelming and facilitate focus.
The use of visual elements to draw attention to important information or guide user actions. Important for enhancing user experience and ensuring key information is noticed.
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.