Communication Theory
The study of how information is transmitted and received, including the processes and methods that facilitate communication. Important for designing effective communication strategies and user interfaces.
The study of how information is transmitted and received, including the processes and methods that facilitate communication. Important for designing effective communication strategies and user interfaces.
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.
A systematic process for determining and addressing needs or gaps between current conditions and desired outcomes. Important for identifying user requirements and guiding the development of digital products that meet those needs.
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.
A cognitive bias where individuals strengthen their beliefs when presented with evidence that contradicts them. Important for understanding user resistance to change and designing strategies to address and mitigate this bias.
A cognitive bias where people give greater weight to outcomes that are certain compared to those that are merely probable. Important for designers to consider how users weigh certain outcomes more heavily in their decision-making.
A psychological phenomenon where a person who has done a favor for someone is more likely to do another favor for that person than if they had received a favor from them. Useful for building positive relationships and encouraging cooperative behavior in design and user interactions.
A cognitive bias where people judge the likelihood of an event based on the size of its category rather than its actual probability. Crucial for designers to understand how category size influences user perception and decision-making processes.
A system that allows customers to access information and perform tasks on their own without the need for assistance from customer service representatives. Important for improving customer experience and reducing support costs.
A visual technique used in Agile development to arrange user stories in a way that helps teams understand the user journey and prioritize work effectively. Crucial for ensuring that development efforts are aligned with user needs and priorities throughout the project.
A self-regulation strategy in the form of "if-then" plans that can lead to better goal attainment and behavior change. Useful for designing interventions that promote positive user behaviors.
The tendency to attribute intentional actions to others' behaviors, often overestimating their intent. Important for understanding and mitigating biases in user interactions and feedback.
A usability testing approach where designers assume that users are easily confused and distracted, focusing on simplicity and clarity in design. Crucial for ensuring that interfaces are intuitive and easy to use under various conditions.
A dark pattern where the product asks for the user's social media or email credentials and then spams all the user's contacts. Recognizing the harm of this practice is important to protect user trust and avoid spamming their contacts.
A principle stating that users spend most of their time on other websites and prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know. Crucial for designing user-friendly and familiar interfaces.
Operations and processes that occur on the user's computer rather than on a server. Crucial for creating responsive and interactive web experiences that leverage the user's device.
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.
The concept of providing flexible and adaptive user interactions based on user input and behavior. Crucial for creating responsive and personalized user experiences.
A dark pattern where a product sneaks an additional item into the user's shopping cart, often through a pre-selected checkbox. Designers should avoid this practice and ensure users have full control over their purchases to maintain trust.
A user experience design methodology focused on rapid iteration, collaboration, and learning through experimentation. Essential for creating user-centered designs efficiently and effectively.
Design strategies aimed at preventing user errors before they occur. Crucial for enhancing usability and ensuring a smooth user experience.
The tendency for people to value products more highly if they have put effort into assembling them. Important for understanding user satisfaction and product attachment.
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.
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.
A visual representation of the user or customer journey, highlighting key interactions, emotions, and pain points. Essential for identifying opportunities to improve user or customer experiences.
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.
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.
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 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 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.
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.
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 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 area within which a user can interact with an element, designed to be large enough for easy tapping. Essential for creating accessible and user-friendly touch interfaces.
User interfaces that change in response to user behavior or preferences to improve usability and efficiency. Crucial for creating personalized and efficient user experiences.
A strategy that focuses on identifying and addressing the specific problems or "pain points" of users in order to improve search engine rankings and attract more targeted traffic. Essential for creating content that directly addresses user needs and improves website visibility.
The process of providing incentives or rewards to encourage specific behaviors or actions. Important for motivating user behavior and increasing engagement.
A cognitive bias that causes people to attribute their own actions to situational factors while attributing others' actions to their character. Essential for helping designers recognize their own situational influences on interpreting user behavior and feedback.
Needs and expectations that are not explicitly stated by users but are inferred from their behavior and context. Crucial for identifying and addressing unarticulated user needs.
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.
The tendency to overestimate the duration or intensity of the emotional impact of future events. Important for understanding user expectations and satisfaction.
The phenomenon where having too many options leads to decision-making paralysis and decreased satisfaction. Crucial for understanding and designing user interfaces that avoid overwhelming users with choices.
The way information is presented to users, which can significantly influence their decisions and perceptions. Important for designing messages and interfaces that guide user choices effectively.
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.
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 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.
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.
Minimum Viable Feature (MVF) is the smallest possible version of a feature that delivers value to users and allows for meaningful feedback collection. Crucial for rapid iteration in product development, enabling teams to validate ideas quickly and efficiently while minimizing resource investment.
The design of environments in which people make decisions, influencing their choices and behaviors. Important for creating user experiences that guide decision-making processes effectively.
The phenomenon where users perceive aesthetically pleasing designs as more usable, regardless of the actual usability. Important for designers to understand the impact of aesthetics on user perception and usability.
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.
A team focused on designing and improving the user experience across products and services. Essential for ensuring cohesive and high-quality user experiences.
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 design approach that predicts user needs and actions to deliver proactive and personalized experiences. Crucial for creating seamless and intuitive user experiences.
A dark pattern where users' activities are tracked without their explicit consent or knowledge. Designers must avoid this practice and ensure clear communication about tracking to respect user privacy.
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 Gestalt principle that describes the tendency of the human visual system to perceive lines or patterns that follow a smooth, continuous path rather than a disjointed or abrupt one. Essential for creating designs that guide the user's eye smoothly and logically.
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.
An economic approach that treats human attention as a scarce commodity, focusing on capturing and retaining user attention. Crucial for understanding user engagement and designing products that effectively capture and retain attention.
A reading pattern where users focus on individual elements or "spots" of interest on a page, rather than following a linear path. Crucial for designing engaging and attention-grabbing content layouts.