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.
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.
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 framework for designing habit-forming products that includes four phases: Trigger, Action, Variable Reward, and Investment. Crucial for creating engaging and sticky user experiences.
A philosophical approach to culture and literature that seeks to confront the social, historical, and ideological forces and structures that produce and constrain it. Valuable for analyzing and addressing power dynamics and biases in design.
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 structured routine for continuous improvement based on a scientific approach to problem-solving and process optimization. Crucial for fostering a culture of continuous improvement and innovation within product design teams.
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.
A reading pattern where users quickly scan for specific markers or keywords within the content. Important for optimizing content for quick search and retrieval.
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 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.
The phenomenon where people have a reduced ability to recall the last items in a list when additional, unrelated information is added at the end. Crucial for designing information presentation to optimize memory retention.
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.
The tendency for the first items presented in a sequence to be remembered better than those in the middle. Crucial for designing information presentation and improving memory retention.
The tendency for people to feel more motivated and accelerate their efforts as they get closer to achieving a goal. Important for designing systems that motivate users effectively.
The concept in web design referring to the portion of a webpage that is visible without scrolling, with content placed above the fold being more immediately visible. Important for optimizing the placement of key content to ensure it captures user attention.
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 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.
A structured classification of risks into categories, helping organizations identify, assess, and manage different types of risks. Important for understanding and managing risks effectively within an organization.
A tool used during brainstorming sessions to prompt and inspire creative thinking, often containing questions, scenarios, or constraints. Useful for facilitating structured ideation sessions and sparking new ideas.
The organizational structure and dynamics of teams within a company, designed to enhance collaboration and delivery. Important for optimizing team performance and project outcomes.
A high-level description of a system's structure and interactions, focusing on its market-facing aspects rather than technical details. Useful for communicating the value and structure of a digital product to non-technical stakeholders and aligning with market needs.
The process of breaking down decisions into smaller, manageable stages to simplify the decision-making process. Useful for guiding users through complex decisions in a structured manner.
A broader, more informal community of interest that spans across the entire organization, focusing on shared topics such as agile practices or UX design. Valuable for cross-functional learning, knowledge sharing, and promoting a unified approach to common challenges.
A cognitive bias where people tend to remember the first and last items in a series better than those in the middle, impacting recall and memory. Crucial for designing information presentation to optimize user memory and recall.
A URL that is structured in a way that is easily readable by both users and search engines, often including keywords to improve search engine optimization. Essential for improving a website's visibility and ranking in search engine results.
A usability testing method that measures the first click users make on a webpage to determine if they can successfully navigate to their goal. Essential for evaluating and improving the navigational structure of a website.
The act of designing and implementing subtle interventions to influence behavior in a predictable way. Crucial for guiding user behavior effectively without limiting freedom of choice.
Enhanced search results that include additional visual or informational elements beyond the standard text, often derived from structured data on a webpage. Important for improving click-through rates and providing users with more useful information in search results.
An interdisciplinary study of systems, examining the complex interactions and relationships between components within a whole. Crucial for understanding and designing complex, interconnected systems.
A psychological model that outlines the stages individuals go through to change behavior, including precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. Crucial for designing interventions and experiences that support users at different stages of behavior change.
Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive (MECE) is a problem-solving framework ensuring that categories are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive, avoiding overlaps and gaps. Essential for structured thinking and comprehensive analysis in problem-solving.
The study of social relationships, structures, and processes. Important for understanding the impact of social dynamics on user behavior and designing for social interactions.
Numeronym for the word "Modularization" (M + 12 letters + N), dividing a system into separate, interchangeable modules that can be developed, tested, and maintained independently. Important for improving maintainability and scalability of systems.
The Principle of Growth is an information architecture guideline that plans for the future expansion and evolution of a system. Crucial for ensuring that information structures can scale and adapt over time.
Code added to a webpage to help search engines understand the content and provide more informative results for users, enhancing SEO. Essential for improving SEO and ensuring that search engines can accurately interpret webpage content.
A structured framework for organizing information, defining the relationships between concepts within a specific domain to enable better understanding, sharing, and reuse of knowledge. Important for creating clear and consistent data models, improving communication, and enhancing the efficiency of information retrieval and management.
Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse (SCAMPER) is a creative thinking technique that encourages innovation in a product or process. Useful for generating new ideas and improving existing products or processes.
The process of providing incentives or rewards to encourage specific behaviors or actions. Important for motivating user behavior and increasing engagement.
The use of HTML tags to convey the meaning of content on web pages, improving accessibility and search engine optimization. Essential for creating accessible and SEO-friendly web content.
Ontology is a comprehensive model that includes entities, their attributes, and the complex relationships between them, while taxonomy is a hierarchical classification system that organizes entities into parent-child relationships. Essential for understanding the depth and scope of data organization, helping to choose the appropriate structure for information management and retrieval.
A search system that allows users to narrow down search results by applying multiple filters based on different attributes or categories. Essential for improving user search experience and efficiency.
The process of optimizing a website for the crawling and indexing phase, focusing on technical aspects like site speed, structure, and security. Crucial for ensuring a website is search engine-friendly and performs well in search rankings.
The series of stages a product goes through from initial concept to market release, including planning, design, development, testing, and launch. Essential for understanding the full lifecycle of product creation and bringing products to market efficiently.
Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) is a standard for representing knowledge organization systems such as thesauri, classification schemes, and taxonomies. Essential for enabling interoperability and sharing of structured knowledge across different systems.
A tool used to organize ideas and data into groups based on their natural relationships. Essential for designers and product managers to synthesize information and generate insights.
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.
A framework that defines how an organization operates across various functions to deliver value to customers and achieve business objectives. Crucial for aligning organizational functions and processes with strategic goals.
The process of optimizing content and website structure to improve visibility and ranking in voice search results. Important for adapting to the growing use of voice search and ensuring content is accessible to voice queries.
A phenomenon where new information interferes with the ability to recall previously learned information, affecting memory retention. Crucial for understanding memory dynamics and designing educational or training programs.
A practice by Google where the mobile version of a website becomes the starting point for what Google includes in its index and the baseline for determining rankings. Crucial for ensuring websites are optimized for mobile users and perform well in search rankings.
The set of shared values, practices, and goals that characterize a startup company. Important for fostering innovation, agility, and a collaborative environment within product design teams.
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 model of organizational change management that involves preparing for change (unfreeze), implementing change (change), and solidifying the new state (refreeze). Important for successfully implementing and sustaining changes in product design processes and organizational practices.
Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) is an agile project delivery framework focused on delivering business value early and continuously. Essential for ensuring that projects align with business goals and user needs through iterative processes.
An SEO issue that occurs when multiple pages on the same website target the same keyword, causing them to compete against each other and potentially harming search rankings. Important for optimizing SEO strategy and ensuring that each page targets unique keywords effectively.
The practice and science of classification, often used to organize content and information. Essential for improving findability and usability in information systems.
A team that supports other teams by providing specialized expertise and tools to improve their performance. Crucial for enhancing overall team effectiveness and efficiency.
A programming paradigm that uses objects and classes to structure software design, promoting reusability and scalability. Crucial for developing maintainable and scalable software systems.
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 theory of motivation that explains behavior as driven by a desire for rewards or incentives. Crucial for designing systems that effectively motivate and engage users.