Boundary Extension
A cognitive bias where people remember scenes as being more expansive than they actually were. Important for understanding how users perceive and recall visual information, aiding in better visual design decisions.
A cognitive bias where people remember scenes as being more expansive than they actually were. Important for understanding how users perceive and recall visual information, aiding in better visual design decisions.
A memory aid that helps individuals recall information through associations, patterns, or acronyms. Important for designing educational content and interfaces that enhance memory retention.
Content or functionality that is built into a platform or device rather than being provided by an external application. Important for ensuring seamless integration and optimal performance.
A phenomenon where people are more likely to remember information when they are in the same state of consciousness as when they learned it. Important for understanding how context affects memory recall and designing experiences that facilitate better retention.
The phenomenon where a humanoid object that appears almost, but not exactly, like a real human causes discomfort in observers. Important for understanding user reactions to lifelike robots and avatars.
The capability of a system to continue operating properly in the event of the failure of some of its components, ensuring that user experience is not significantly affected by errors or issues, similar to Postel's Law. Essential for designing reliable and resilient systems, such as a form that normalizes user input for compatibility rather than returning an error (e.g., unconstrained phone number format).
A phenomenon where people fail to recognize a repeated item in a visual sequence, impacting information processing and perception. Important for understanding visual perception and designing interfaces that avoid repetitive confusion.
The drive to perform an activity due to external rewards or pressures rather than for the inherent enjoyment of the activity itself. Important for designing systems that effectively use external incentives to motivate user behavior.
The default scaling factor applied by a device to render content at its optimal size and resolution. Crucial for ensuring visual clarity and consistency on various devices.
The study of narrative and narrative structure and the ways that these affect our perception. Useful for understanding and applying narrative techniques in design and communication.
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.
A product development approach where teams start with the desired customer experience and work backwards to determine what needs to be built to achieve that outcome. Essential for ensuring that product development is aligned with customer needs and expectations.
A concept in transactional analysis that describes three different aspects of the self: Parent, Adult, and Child, each influencing behavior and communication. Important for designing communication strategies and interfaces that resonate with different user states.
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.
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.
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.
Emotional states where individuals are calm and rational, often contrasted with hot states where emotions run high. Important for understanding decision-making processes and designing experiences that accommodate both states.
The process of comparing design metrics to historical performance, competitive standards, or industry best practices to identify areas for improvement. Crucial for measuring progress, improving practice maturity, and evaluating competitive differentiation.
The pursuit of a healthy relationship with technology, balancing its use to enhance well-being without causing harm. Important for promoting healthy technology use and designing user experiences that support well-being.
The initial interaction a customer has with a brand. Important for understanding the beginning of the customer journey.
A social norm of responding to a positive action with another positive action, fostering mutual benefit and cooperation. Important for designing user experiences and systems that encourage positive reciprocal interactions.
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.
A user-centered approach to problem-solving that involves empathy, ideation, prototyping, and testing. Crucial for developing innovative and effective solutions that meet user needs.
Emerging patterns and movements in design that gain popularity and influence on a global scale. Important for staying current with industry standards and innovating design practices.
A set of fundamental principles and guidelines that inform and shape user research practices. Crucial for maintaining consistency and ensuring high-quality user insights.
The practice of designing applications specifically for a particular operating system or platform, leveraging its unique features and capabilities. Important for delivering high-performance and responsive user experiences.
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.
The process of creating an interface that displays key performance indicators and metrics in a visually accessible way. Essential for monitoring performance and making data-driven decisions.
The totality of all interactions a customer has with a brand, shaping their overall perception and relationship with the brand. Essential for building strong customer relationships and fostering brand loyalty.
Happiness, Engagement, Adoption, Retention, and Task (HEART) is a framework used to measure and improve user experience success. Important for systematically evaluating and enhancing user experience.
A usability test where users are shown a design for 5 seconds to measure recall and initial reactions. Important for designers to test how well key information and elements are conveyed quickly to users.
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 concept of providing flexible and adaptive user interactions based on user input and behavior. Crucial for creating responsive and personalized user experiences.
A usability testing method where participants verbalize their thoughts while interacting with a product. Essential for understanding user thought processes and identifying usability issues.
A technique used to evaluate a product or system by testing it with real users to identify any usability issues and gather qualitative and quantitative data on their interactions. Crucial for identifying and resolving usability issues to improve user satisfaction and performance.
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.
A data visualization technique that shows the intensity of data points with varying colors, often used to represent user interactions on a website. Essential for understanding user behavior and identifying areas of interest or concern in digital product interfaces.
Qualitative data that provides insights into the context and human aspects behind quantitative data. Crucial for gaining deep insights into user behaviors and motivations.
Visual cues or instructions integrated into an interface to guide users on how to use certain features or functionalities. Important for improving user onboarding and enhancing the user experience.
A dark pattern where users are unknowingly signed up for a recurring subscription. Awareness of this tactic is important to ensure transparent subscription services and prevent deceptive charges.
A cognitive bias where repeated statements are more likely to be perceived as true, regardless of their actual accuracy. Crucial for understanding how repetition influences beliefs and designing communication strategies for users.
A cognitive bias where individuals tend to focus on positive information or events more than negative ones, especially as they age. Useful for understanding user preferences and designing experiences that emphasize positive outcomes.
The perceived heaviness or importance of an element in a design, influenced by factors such as size, color, and contrast. Crucial for creating balanced and visually appealing designs.
The tendency for people's perception to be affected by their recurring thoughts at the time. Important for understanding how current thoughts influence user perception and decision-making.
A psychological effect where exposure to one stimulus influences the response to a subsequent stimulus, without conscious guidance or intention. Crucial for designing experiences that subtly guide user behavior and decision-making.
Elements in a design that draw the viewer's attention and create a visual hierarchy. Essential for guiding user attention and improving the effectiveness of visual communication.
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.
The application of game-design elements and principles in non-game contexts to engage and motivate people to achieve their goals. Crucial for enhancing user engagement and motivation in various contexts.
A visual representation of a sequence of events or user interactions, used to plan and communicate the flow of a narrative or process. Important for visualizing and communicating design concepts and user journeys.
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.
Conversational User Interface (CUI) is a user interface designed to communicate with users in a conversational manner, often using natural language processing and AI. Essential for creating intuitive and engaging user experiences in digital products.
A research method where participants take photographs of their activities, environments, or interactions to provide insights into their behaviors and experiences. Important for gaining in-depth, visual insights into user contexts and behaviors.
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.
The tendency to overestimate the duration or intensity of the emotional impact of future events. Important for understanding user expectations and satisfaction.
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 guided, interactive overlay that introduces users to features or tasks within an application. Crucial for onboarding new users and enhancing user understanding of complex features.
An action in a user interface that, once performed, cannot be undone and typically involves deleting or removing content. Important for emphasizing the severity of the action and ensuring user confirmation to prevent accidental data loss.
A theory that explains how the amount of mental effort required to process information can impact user experience and task performance. Important for designing user interfaces that minimize unnecessary cognitive effort, enhancing usability and user satisfaction.
A dark pattern where a free trial ends and the user is automatically charged without warning. Designers should avoid this practice and ensure users are clearly informed about charges to maintain ethical standards.
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.