Rule of Three
A writing and design principle that suggests that things grouped in threes are more satisfying, effective, and memorable for audiences. Important for creating impactful and memorable content and designs.
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“design guidance”
Constancy
The perception of objects as unchanging despite changes in sensory input, such as changes in lighting, distance, or angle. Important for understanding user perception and designing stable visual experiences.
How Might We
A brainstorming technique that frames problems as opportunities for innovation, starting with the phrase "How might we...?". Essential for fostering creativity and generating solutions during the design process.
Confirmshaming
A dark pattern where the user is guilt-tripped into opting into something by using language designed to shame them if they decline. Designers must avoid this manipulative tactic and respect user decisions without using guilt or shame.
Limited Attention
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.
Tiny Habits
A behavior change method that encourages the adoption of small, easy-to-do habits that can lead to larger, sustainable behavior changes. Important for designing systems that support gradual and sustainable behavior change.
Horn Effect
A cognitive bias where one negative trait of a person or thing influences the perception of other traits. Important for designing experiences that counteract or mitigate negative biases in user perception.
Social Proof
A psychological phenomenon where people follow the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation. Essential for designing interfaces and experiences that leverage social influence to guide user behavior and increase trust and engagement.
Scarcity Tactics
A dark pattern where availability is falsely limited to pressure users into making a purchase. Awareness of this deceptive practice is important to provide honest information about product availability.
Illusory Superiority
A cognitive bias where individuals overestimate their own abilities, qualities, or performance relative to others. Important for understanding user self-perception and designing systems that account for inflated self-assessments.
Less Is Better Effect
A cognitive bias where people prefer a smaller set of higher-quality options over a larger set with lower overall quality. Useful for designing product offerings and experiences that emphasize quality over quantity for users.
Defaulting
The practice of setting defaults in decision environments to influence outcomes, often used in behavioral economics and design. Crucial for creating user experiences that encourage beneficial behaviors through preselected options.
Empathy Gap
A cognitive bias where people underestimate the influence of emotional states on their own and others' behavior. Crucial for designers to account for varying user emotional states in experience design.
Privacy Zuckering
A dark pattern where the user is tricked into publicly sharing more information about themselves than they intended. Designers must avoid this deceptive practice and ensure clear, consensual data sharing to respect user privacy.
Layer Cake Pattern
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.
Trick Questions
A dark pattern where questions are worded in a way that tricks the user into giving an answer they didn't intend. Recognizing the harm of this practice is important to maintain clarity and honesty in user interactions.
Fresh Start Effect
A cognitive phenomenon where people are more likely to pursue goals or change behavior following a temporal landmark (e.g., new year, birthday). Useful for designing interventions and features that leverage these moments to encourage positive behavior.
Picture Superiority Effect
The tendency for images to be more easily remembered than words, highlighting the power of visual communication. Crucial for designing effective visual content that enhances memory retention and user engagement.
Accessibility
The design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities or specific needs. Crucial for creating inclusive products that can be used by everyone, including those with disabilities.
Mere Exposure Effect
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.
Sustainability
The practice of designing and implementing processes, systems, or business solutions in a way that ensures their long-term viability, efficiency, and maintainability. Crucial for creating durable and efficient designs that remain practical and effective over time, ensuring the ongoing success and feasibility of digital products and operations.
Closure
A Gestalt principle where the mind completes incomplete figures to form a whole, aiding in the perception of shapes and objects. Crucial for designing visual elements that are easily understood by users.
Hook Model
A framework for designing habit-forming products that includes four phases: Trigger, Action, Variable Reward, and Investment. Crucial for creating engaging and sticky user experiences.
Negativity Bias
The tendency to give more weight to negative experiences or information than positive ones. Crucial for understanding user behavior and designing systems that balance positive and negative feedback.
MBSE
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.
Directed Cognition
The process by which attention is guided by internal goals and external stimuli, affecting how information is processed and remembered. Useful for designing user interfaces that direct user attention effectively.
Think-Aloud Protocol
A usability testing method where participants verbalize their thoughts while interacting with a product. Essential for understanding user thought processes and identifying usability issues.
Behavioral User Experience
The application of behavioral science principles to improve the design and usability of digital products, focusing on user behavior and interactions. Important for creating user experiences that are intuitive and engaging by leveraging behavioral insights.
Peak End Rule
A cognitive bias where people judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak (most intense point) and its end, rather than the total sum of the experience. Crucial for designing memorable and satisfying user experiences.
Visual Depiction Effect
A phenomenon where people better understand and remember information when it is presented visually. Crucial for designing effective and engaging visual content.
Omission Bias
A cognitive bias where people judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions (inactions). Important for understanding user decision-making and designing systems that mitigate this bias.
Hidden Costs
A dark pattern where additional costs are only revealed at the last step of the checkout process. It's essential to avoid this tactic and promote transparent pricing to build user trust.
Problem Space
The context and set of conditions surrounding a problem that needs to be solved. Essential for understanding the full scope of a problem and identifying potential solutions.
Hick’s Law
A principle that states the time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices available. Crucial for designing user interfaces that minimize cognitive load and enhance decision-making efficiency.
Decision Utility
The value or satisfaction derived from a decision, influencing the choices people make. Crucial for understanding user preferences and designing experiences that maximize satisfaction.
Iconography
The visual images, symbols, or modes of representation collectively associated with a subject, often used in design to communicate ideas quickly and effectively. Important for creating cohesive and meaningful visual systems.
Information Bias
A cognitive bias where people seek out more information than is needed to make a decision, often leading to analysis paralysis. Crucial for designing decision-making processes that avoid information overload for users.
Information Aversion
The tendency to avoid information that one perceives as potentially negative or anxiety-inducing. Important for designing experiences that encourage information-seeking behavior.
Hedonic Adaptation
The observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes. Useful for designing experiences that maintain user engagement and satisfaction over time.
Iconic Memory
A type of sensory memory that briefly holds visual information for a fraction of a second. Useful for understanding how users process visual information and designing interfaces accordingly.
Secondary Reinforcer
A stimulus that gains reinforcing properties through association with a primary reinforcer, such as money or tokens, which are associated with basic needs. Essential for understanding complex behavior reinforcement strategies and designing effective reward systems.
Expectation Effect
The phenomenon where individuals' expectations about a situation influence their actual experience of that situation. Useful for understanding the influence of expectations on outcomes.
Decision Fatigue
The deteriorating quality of decisions made by an individual after a long session of decision making, due to mental exhaustion. Important for designing interfaces that minimize cognitive load and simplify decision processes.
MINDSPACE
Messenger, Incentives, Norms, Defaults, Salience, Priming, Affect, Commitment, and Ego (MINDSPACE) is a framework used to understand and influence behavior. Crucial for designing interventions that effectively influence user behavior.
Friction
Elements in a process that cause resistance or slow down user actions, which can lead to frustration or be used intentionally to prevent errors and encourage deliberate actions. Important for recognizing both the negative impact of unnecessary delays and the positive use of intentional friction to enhance user decision-making and reduce errors.
Trick Cancellation
A dark pattern where the cancellation process is intentionally complicated to discourage users from canceling. Designers must avoid complicating cancellations and respect user decisions with a straightforward process.
Gestalt Theory
A set of principles describing how the human mind organizes visual information into meaningful wholes. Crucial for designing intuitive digital interfaces and cohesive user experiences that align with natural human perception patterns.
Miller’s Law
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.
User Testing
The process of evaluating a product by testing it with real users to gather feedback and identify usability issues. Essential for validating design decisions and ensuring the product meets user needs.
Screen Density
The number of pixels per inch (PPI) on a display, affecting the sharpness and clarity of visual elements. Crucial for optimizing visual content for different devices.
Crazy Eights
A brainstorming technique where participants sketch eight ideas in eight minutes to generate a wide range of concepts quickly. Essential for fostering creativity and generating diverse ideas rapidly.
Interaction Cost
The effort required for users to complete a task or interaction within a system. Essential for optimizing usability and minimizing user effort.
Speed Dating
A research method in which participants interact with a series of potential product concepts in quick succession, providing rapid feedback on multiple ideas. Useful for quickly gathering user feedback on various concepts and iterating based on their preferences.
Mental Accounting
A behavioral economics concept where people categorize and treat money differently depending on its source or intended use. Crucial for understanding financial behavior and designing systems that align with users' mental accounting practices.
Hostile Attribution Bias
A cognitive bias where individuals interpret others' behaviors as having hostile intent, even when the behavior is ambiguous or benign. Important for understanding user interactions and designing experiences that mitigate negative interpretations.
Convergent Thinking
A cognitive process where ideas are brought together to find a single, best solution to a problem. Important for problem-solving and decision-making in design processes.
Premack Principle
A strategy where engaging, preferred activities are used to motivate users to complete less engaging, necessary tasks. Useful for designing user interfaces and experiences that encourage desired behaviors by leveraging more enjoyable activities as rewards.
Semiotic Theory
The study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation. Important for designing effective visual communication and iconography.
Needy Patterns
UI patterns that excessively demand user attention, often interrupting the user experience. Important for identifying and avoiding practices that can frustrate or annoy users.
Scanning Pattern
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.