Paradox of Choice
The phenomenon where having too many options leads to anxiety and difficulty making a decision, reducing overall satisfaction. Important for designing user experiences that balance choice and simplicity to enhance satisfaction.
The phenomenon where having too many options leads to anxiety and difficulty making a decision, reducing overall satisfaction. Important for designing user experiences that balance choice and simplicity to enhance satisfaction.
The tendency to overestimate how much our future preferences and behaviors will align with our current preferences and behaviors. Important for understanding user behavior and designing experiences that account for changes over time.
Features or elements added to enhance the functionality or user experience of a system. Crucial for improving user engagement and satisfaction by adding valuable enhancements.
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.
A Gestalt principle stating that elements moving in the same direction are perceived as a group or a single entity. Crucial for creating visual designs that effectively convey movement and relationships.
A step-by-step guide that helps users complete a complex task by breaking it down into manageable steps. Crucial for improving usability and ensuring users can successfully complete multi-step processes.
The process of providing incentives or rewards to encourage specific behaviors or actions. Important for motivating user behavior and increasing engagement.
A phenomenon where users fail to notice significant changes in their visual field. Important for understanding and designing around potential user perception issues.
Replacing one UI component with another, often used in adaptive or dynamic interfaces. Crucial for maintaining flexibility and adaptability in UI design.
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.
Also known as Self Relevance Effect, the tendency for individuals to better remember information that is personally relevant or related to themselves. Important for designing personalized user experiences and enhancing memory retention.
A state of overthinking and indecision that prevents making a choice, often due to too many options or uncertainty. Important for designing interfaces that simplify decision-making processes for users.
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.
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.
The evaluation of products based on their ability to influence and shape user behavior. Useful for assessing how well a product guides and influences user actions and decisions.
A Japanese term for "mistake-proofing," referring to any mechanism or process that helps prevent errors by design. Crucial for designing systems and processes that minimize the risk of human error.
The ability of a system to maintain its state and data across sessions, ensuring continuity and consistency in user experience. Crucial for designing reliable and user-friendly systems that retain data and settings across interactions.
A design principle that suggests a pattern for how people read a webpage, dividing it into four quadrants and emphasizing the importance of the top-left and bottom-right areas. Essential for creating effective layouts that align with natural reading patterns.
A technology and research method that measures where and how long a person looks at various areas on a screen or interface. Crucial for understanding user attention and improving interface design.
The mental and physical effort required to complete a task, influencing user experience and performance. Crucial for designing systems that minimize cognitive and physical load, enhancing usability and efficiency.
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.
A motivational theory suggesting that individuals are motivated to act based on the expected outcomes of their actions and the attractiveness of those outcomes. Important for understanding motivation and behavior, distinct from decision-making under uncertainty.
A qualitative research method that studies people in their natural environments to understand their behaviors, cultures, and experiences. Crucial for gaining deep insights into user behaviors and contexts.
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.
A phenomenon where an item that stands out is more likely to be remembered than other items, often used in design to highlight important elements. Crucial for designing interfaces that effectively capture user attention.
The tendency for people to believe that others are telling the truth, leading to a general assumption of honesty in communication. Important for understanding communication dynamics and designing systems that account for this bias.
A cognitive bias that leads individuals to prefer things to remain the same rather than change, often resisting new options or changes. Crucial for understanding resistance to change and designing strategies to overcome it among users.
User interfaces that change in response to user behavior or preferences to improve usability and efficiency. Crucial for creating personalized and efficient user experiences.
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.
The discrepancy between what people intend to do and what they actually do. Crucial for designing interventions that bridge the gap between user intentions and actions.
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.
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.
A usability test to see what impression users get within the first 10 seconds of interacting with a product or page. Important for designers to quickly gauge initial user impressions and improve immediate engagement.
A testing phase where a product is released to a limited audience outside the development team to identify issues and gather feedback before the final release. Essential for refining a product based on real user feedback and ensuring it meets user needs.
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 tendency to search for, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses. Crucial for understanding cognitive biases that affect user decision-making and designing interventions to mitigate them.
Ensuring that color choices in design are inclusive and usable by people with color vision deficiencies. Crucial for creating accessible and inclusive designs.
A cognitive bias where people attribute greater value to outcomes that required significant effort to achieve. Useful for designing experiences that recognize and reward user effort and persistence.
Environmental signals that influence behavior and decision-making, such as signage, prompts, or notifications. Useful for designing environments and systems that effectively guide user behavior.
The degree to which a product's elements are consistent with external standards or other products. Important for ensuring compatibility and user familiarity across different systems.
A dark pattern where practices are used to make it hard for users to compare prices with other options. It's essential to avoid this tactic and promote fair competition by allowing users to make informed decisions.
A cognitive bias where individuals' expectations influence their perceptions and judgments. Relevant for understanding how expectations skew perceptions and decisions among users.
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.
Research conducted to assess the effectiveness, usability, and impact of a design or product. Essential for validating design decisions and improving user experiences.
Research conducted in natural settings to collect data on how people interact with products or environments in real-world conditions. Crucial for gaining authentic insights into user behaviors and contexts.
The condition in which two or more versions of a product or system offer the same features and functionalities, ensuring consistency and uniformity across different platforms or updates. Important for providing a consistent user experience, reducing confusion, and ensuring all users have access to the same capabilities regardless of the platform they use.
A concept describing how motivation fluctuates over time, influenced by various factors such as goals, rewards, and external circumstances. Crucial for designing systems that align with users' motivational states to maximize engagement and productivity.
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 cognitive bias where people's decisions are influenced by how information is presented rather than just the information itself. Crucial for designers to minimize bias in how information is presented to users.
A usability evaluation method where evaluators walk through tasks to identify potential user difficulties. Essential for improving user interfaces and ensuring usability.
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 psychological phenomenon where repeated exposure to a stimulus leads to an increased preference for it. Useful for designing marketing and user engagement strategies that increase familiarity and preference.
A recommendation system technique that suggests items similar to those a user has shown interest in, based on item features. Important for providing personalized recommendations and improving user satisfaction.
A set of cognitive processes that include working memory, flexible thinking, and self-control, crucial for planning, decision-making, and behavior regulation. Crucial for designing interfaces and experiences that support users' cognitive abilities.
A technique used to assess the visual hierarchy of a design by squinting to see which elements stand out the most. Essential for evaluating the effectiveness of a design's layout and emphasis.
The style and attitude of the communication in a product, reflecting the brand's personality and affecting how messages are perceived by users. Important for creating a consistent and engaging user experience that aligns with the brand identity.
The technology of transmitting and understanding information through touch. Crucial for enhancing user interactions with devices and systems through tactile feedback.
Moment of Truth (MoT) refers to any instance where a customer interacts with a brand, product, or service in a way that leaves a significant impression. Crucial for identifying key touchpoints in the customer journey and optimizing them to enhance overall user experience and brand perception.
A decision-making strategy where individuals are prompted to make a choice rather than defaulting to a pre-set option. Useful for increasing user engagement and ensuring intentional decision-making.
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.