User Testing
The process of evaluating a product by testing it with real users to gather feedback and identify usability issues. Essential for validating design decisions and ensuring the product meets user needs.
156 topics found for:
“user-centered design”
Data-Driven Design
An approach to design that relies on data and analytics to inform decisions and measure success. Crucial for making informed design decisions that are backed by evidence.
The User Is Drunk
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.
Design Sprint
A time-constrained, intensive process that helps teams quickly design, prototype, and test ideas. Important for rapidly developing and validating design solutions.
Ethnographic Research
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.
Bottom-Up IA
An approach to information architecture that starts with the details and builds up to a comprehensive structure. Useful for designing flexible and detailed systems that can adapt to user needs.
DSDM
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.
MVE
Minimum Viable Experience (MVE) is the simplest version of a product that delivers a complete and satisfying user experience while meeting core user needs. Essential for rapidly validating product concepts and user experience designs while ensuring that even early versions of a product provide value and a positive impression to users.
Time Pressure
A dark pattern where users are pressured to make quick decisions by creating a false sense of urgency. Designers must avoid creating artificial urgency and allow users to make decisions at their own pace.
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.
Context Mapping
A research technique that explores the context in which users interact with a product, service, or environment to understand their needs and behaviors. Crucial for gaining deep insights into user contexts and designing more relevant solutions.
Usability
The degree to which a product or system can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use. Essential for creating products that are easy to use and meet user needs effectively.
Content Design
The process of planning, creating, and managing content in a way that is user-centered and purpose-driven. Crucial for ensuring that content is engaging, relevant, and effective.
Formative Testing
A type of usability testing conducted during the design process to identify issues and improve the design iteratively. Crucial for refining designs and ensuring usability before final release.
Contextual Inquiry
A field research method where researchers observe and interview users in their natural environment to understand their tasks and challenges. Crucial for gaining authentic insights into user behavior and needs.
Needy Patterns
UI patterns that excessively demand user attention, often interrupting the user experience. Important for identifying and avoiding practices that can frustrate or annoy users.
Error Prevention
Design strategies aimed at preventing user errors before they occur. Crucial for enhancing usability and ensuring a smooth user experience.
Experience Team
A team focused on designing and improving the user experience across products and services. Essential for ensuring cohesive and high-quality user experiences.
Usability Risk
The risk that users will find the product difficult or confusing to use, preventing them from effectively utilizing its features. Crucial for making sure the product is user-friendly and intuitive, enhancing the user experience and adoption.
Wayfinding
The process of designing intuitive navigation systems within a digital product that help users easily understand their current location, navigate to desired destinations, and efficiently complete tasks. Crucial for enhancing user experience, reducing cognitive load, and ensuring users can achieve their goals seamlessly.
Negativity Bias
The tendency to give more weight to negative experiences or information than positive ones. Crucial for understanding user behavior and designing systems that balance positive and negative feedback.
Flexibility-Usability Tradeoff
A principle stating that as the flexibility of a system increases, its usability often decreases, and vice versa. Crucial for balancing versatility and ease of use 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.
Focus Groups
A qualitative research method where a small group of people discuss a product, service, or concept to gather diverse insights and opinions. Important for gaining in-depth understanding of user perceptions and needs.
Right Rail Blindness
A specific form of banner blindness where users ignore content placed in the right-hand rail of a web page. Important for optimizing web page layouts and placing critical information where it will be seen.
Theory of Reasoned Action
A psychological theory that predicts an individual's behavior based on their intention, which is influenced by their attitudes and subjective norms. Important for understanding and predicting user behavior and designing interventions to influence actions.
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.
Co-Creation
A collaborative process spanning multiple stages of product/service development where stakeholders, including users, actively participate in the design and development of products or services. Crucial for creating products that meet user needs and foster innovation.
BeSci
Behavioral Science (BeSci) is the study of human behavior through systematic analysis and investigation. Essential for understanding and influencing user behavior in design and product development.
Multimodal Theory
A theory that explains how information is processed through different sensory modalities, such as visual, auditory, and tactile. Important for designing user experiences that engage multiple senses for better interaction and understanding.
Stages of Change Model
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.
User Story
A simple description of a feature from the perspective of the user, typically used in Agile development to capture requirements and guide development. Crucial for ensuring that development efforts are aligned with user needs and priorities.
Design Validation
The process of testing and evaluating a design to ensure it meets user needs and business goals before final implementation. Crucial for ensuring that designs are effective and meet intended objectives.
User Research Canon
A set of fundamental principles and guidelines that inform and shape user research practices. Crucial for maintaining consistency and ensuring high-quality user insights.
Generative Research
Research aimed at exploring and identifying new opportunities, needs, and ideas to inform the design process. Essential for discovering user insights and guiding innovative design solutions.
5-Second Test
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.
Grounded Theory
A research method that involves forming a theory based on data systematically gathered and analyzed. Useful for developing design theories and solutions that are directly grounded in user research and data.
Photo Study
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.
Usability Testing
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.
Implicit Requirements
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.
Visual Weight
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.
Privacy Zuckering
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.
Think-Aloud Protocol
A usability testing method where participants verbalize their thoughts while interacting with a product. Essential for understanding user thought processes and identifying usability issues.
Thick Data
Qualitative data that provides insights into the context and human aspects behind quantitative data. Crucial for gaining deep insights into user behaviors and motivations.
Incentive Theory
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.
Behavioral Product Critique
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.
Storyboard
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.
Continuous Discovery
An ongoing process of learning about user needs and validating assumptions through continuous research and experimentation. Crucial for staying responsive to user needs and improving products iteratively.
Field Study
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.
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.
Beta Testing
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.
Hostile Attribution Bias
A cognitive bias where individuals interpret others' behaviors as having hostile intent, even when the behavior is ambiguous or benign. Important for understanding user interactions and designing experiences that mitigate negative interpretations.
Diary Study
A research method where participants record their activities, experiences, and thoughts over a period of time, providing insights into their behaviors and needs. Important for gaining in-depth, longitudinal insights into user experiences.
Activity Tracking
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.
Hidden Costs
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.
Product Critique
A structured evaluation process where a product's design, functionality, and user experience are assessed, often by peers or experts. Essential for identifying areas for improvement and fostering a culture of continuous enhancement.
Speed Dating
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.
Expectancy Theory
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.
IA Research Study
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.
Product Discovery
The process of identifying user needs and market opportunities to inform the development of new products or features. Crucial for ensuring that products are user-centered and meet real market demands.