Functionalism
A design approach that prioritizes the practical purpose and usability of digital products over purely aesthetic considerations. Important for creating efficient, user-centered designs that effectively fulfill their intended functions.
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“efficient design”
Co-Design
A collaborative process specific to the design phase that involves stakeholders, including users, in the refinement of user-centered design solutions. Essential for creating designs that truly meet user needs and expectations.
Design Pattern
A reusable solution to common design problems that provides a standard way of addressing recurring issues in design. Essential for creating consistent and efficient design solutions.
Design System
A collection of reusable components, guided by clear standards, that can be assembled to build any number of applications, ensuring consistency and efficiency. Crucial for maintaining design consistency and efficiency across products.
Generative Design
An iterative design process that uses algorithms and computational tools to generate a wide range of design solutions based on defined constraints and goals. Crucial for exploring innovative and optimized design solutions.
DesignOps
The orchestration and optimization of design operations to improve efficiency, quality, and impact of the design function within an organization. Crucial for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of design teams.
Lean UX
A user experience design methodology focused on rapid iteration, collaboration, and learning through experimentation. Essential for creating user-centered designs efficiently and effectively.
Form Follows Function
A design principle that states the design of a product or interface should primarily serve its intended purpose or functionality. Important for creating digital designs that are both practical and user-friendly.
Anti-Pattern
A common solution to a recurring problem that is ineffective and counterproductive, often resulting in negative consequences. Important for recognizing and avoiding poor design practices and improving overall design quality.
Atomic Design
A methodology for creating design systems by breaking down interfaces into their basic components (atoms, molecules, organisms, templates, and pages). Essential for creating scalable and maintainable design systems.
Design Principles
Fundamental guidelines that inform and shape the design process, ensuring consistency, usability, and effectiveness in product creation. Essential for creating coherent, user-centered designs that align with organizational goals and user needs.
Commodification of Design
The process where design services and outputs become standardized and interchangeable, often leading to competition based primarily on price rather than quality or creativity. Important for understanding market trends and pressures that reduce the perceived value and uniqueness of design work, impacting pricing and differentiation strategies.
Environmental Design
The process of addressing surrounding environmental parameters when devising plans, programs, policies, buildings, or products. Important for creating designs that are sustainable and contextually appropriate.
Crit
Crit (Design Critique) is a structured feedback session where designers present their work and receive constructive feedback from peers. Essential for refining design quality through collaborative input.
UCD
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.
Pattern Library
A collection of design patterns that provides solutions to common design problems. Useful for standardizing design solutions and promoting best practices across projects.
Principles Over Processes
A design philosophy that emphasizes core design principles over rigid adherence to standardized processes. Essential for maintaining creativity and innovation in large-scale, process-driven environments.
Component Library
A collection of reusable UI components that can be used to build applications. Helps in maintaining consistency and efficiency in the design and development process.
Fitts’s Law
A predictive model of human movement that describes the time required to move to a target area, used to design user interfaces that enhance usability. Important for designing efficient and user-friendly interfaces.
Wall Walk
An activity during a design audit where printed screens representing customer journeys are reviewed collaboratively with stakeholders to assess design quality and identify areas for improvement. Essential for ensuring design consistency, gathering feedback, and making informed decisions on design enhancements.
Paper Prototyping
A method of creating and testing user interfaces using hand-drawn sketches and mockups on paper. Essential for early-stage design validation and gathering user feedback.
Modularity
The degree to which a system's components may be separated and recombined, often used in the context of software or hardware design. Important for enhancing flexibility, reusability, and ease of maintenance in design.
Wireframing
The process of creating a simplified visual guide or blueprint for the layout and structure of a webpage or app, focusing on functionality and content placement. Crucial for planning and communicating design structure before full development.
Ergonomics
The study of how people interact with their environment and products, aiming to improve comfort, efficiency, and safety. Crucial for designing user-friendly and safe products and workspaces.
Occam’s Razor
A principle that suggests the simplest explanation is often the correct one, favoring solutions that make the fewest assumptions. Crucial for problem-solving and designing straightforward, efficient solutions.
Iconic Representation
The use of icons or graphical symbols to represent objects, actions, or concepts, enhancing usability and visual communication. Crucial for creating intuitive and accessible user interfaces.
Rapid Prototyping
The process of quickly creating a preliminary version of a product to test and validate ideas before full-scale development. Important for validating design concepts and gathering user feedback early.
Fibonacci Sequence
A series of numbers where each number is the sum of the two preceding ones, creating a pattern found in nature and various fields. Useful for understanding natural growth patterns, efficient estimation techniques, and its relationship to the aesthetically pleasing Golden Ratio.
Focused Navigation
Providing clear, concise, and relevant navigation options to help users find what they need quickly. Crucial for improving user experience and efficiency in digital products.
Application Architecture
The high-level structure of a software application, defining its components and their interactions. Essential for designing robust, scalable, and maintainable digital products.
Design Tokens
A system of design variables used to maintain consistency in a design system, such as colors, fonts, and spacing. Crucial for ensuring uniformity and scalability in design across different platforms and products.
Design Audit
A comprehensive review of a brand's design assets and practices to ensure consistency and effectiveness. Important for maintaining a cohesive and effective brand identity.
User Centered Design
An iterative design process that focuses on the users and their needs at every phase of the design process. Crucial for creating products that are effective, efficient, and satisfying for the end users.
Repeated Measures Design
A research design where the same participants are used in all conditions of an experiment, allowing for the comparison of different conditions within the same group. Essential for reducing variability and improving the reliability of experimental results.
Knolling
The process of arranging related objects in parallel or at 90-degree angles for visual organization and efficiency. Useful for designers to maintain an organized workspace, enhance visual clarity, and streamline their workflow.
Backstage
Elements of a service or product that are not visible to the user but are essential for delivering the front-stage experience. Crucial for understanding and designing the full user experience, including behind-the-scenes elements.
Embracing Constraints
A design philosophy that views constraints as opportunities for creativity and innovation, rather than limitations. Crucial for fostering a mindset that turns limitations into design strengths.
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.
Accot-Zhai Steering Law
A model predicting the speed-accuracy trade-off in pointing tasks when using devices like a mouse, important for user interface design. Useful for designing user interfaces that are efficient and easy to navigate.
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.
Heuristic
A rule-of-thumb or shortcut that simplifies decision-making and problem-solving processes. Essential for designing user-friendly interfaces that facilitate quick and efficient decision-making.
Principle of Contrast
A design principle that states that contrasting elements (such as color, shape, size) can be used to draw attention and create visual interest. Important for creating visually engaging and accessible designs that guide user attention effectively.
Visual Fluency
The ease with which visual information can be processed and understood by the viewer. Important for creating intuitive and accessible interfaces.
UX
User Experience (UX) refers to the overall experience of a person using a product, system, or service, encompassing all aspects of the end-user's interaction. Crucial for creating products that are not only functional but also enjoyable, efficient, and satisfying to use.
Nielsen’s Heuristics
A set of ten general principles for user interface design created by Jakob Nielsen to improve usability. Essential for evaluating and improving user interface designs.
Interaction Cost
The effort required for users to complete a task or interaction within a system. Essential for optimizing usability and minimizing user effort.
Product Architecture
The structural design of a product, defining its components, their relationships, and how they interact to fulfill the product's purpose. Important for ensuring that a product is well-organized, scalable, and maintainable.
Sequential Navigation
A navigation design pattern where users follow a specific order of steps or stages to complete a task, often used in forms, surveys, and instructional guides. Essential for guiding users through processes in a clear and structured manner, improving usability.
Recognition Over Recall
A design principle that suggests interfaces should minimize the need for users to recall information from memory, instead providing cues to aid recognition. Essential for creating user-friendly interfaces that reduce cognitive load and improve usability.
Information Foraging
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.
Function Allocation
The process of determining which tasks should be performed by humans and which by machines in a system. Essential for optimizing system efficiency and usability.
Common Region
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.
Error Prevention
Design strategies aimed at preventing user errors before they occur. Crucial for enhancing usability and ensuring a smooth user experience.
Component Swapping
Replacing one UI component with another, often used in adaptive or dynamic interfaces. Crucial for maintaining flexibility and adaptability in UI design.
Principle of Scale
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.
Fast and Frugal Heuristics
Decision-making strategies that use simple heuristics to make quick, efficient, and satisfactory choices with limited information. Important for designing user experiences that support quick and efficient decision-making.
Environmental Psychology
The study of the interplay between individuals and their surroundings, including built environments and natural settings. Essential for designing spaces that enhance well-being and productivity.
Information Hierarchy
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.
Page Parking
The practice of keeping multiple web pages open in browser tabs for future reference or action. Important for understanding user behavior and designing for multi-tab usage.
Information Ecology
The study of the relationships between people, practices, values, and technologies within an information environment. Helps in understanding and designing systems that are sustainable and adaptive to human and environmental changes.