Co-Design
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 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.
The level of sophistication and integration of design practices within an organization's processes and culture. Essential for assessing and improving the effectiveness of design in driving business value and innovation.
A design principle that states the design of a product or interface should primarily serve its intended purpose or functionality. Important for creating digital designs that are both practical and user-friendly.
Narrative descriptions of how users might interact with a product or system to achieve specific goals, used to inform design and development. Important for understanding user needs and ensuring the design supports their tasks and goals.
The application of neuroscience principles to design, aiming to create more effective and engaging user experiences based on how the brain processes information. Crucial for creating designs that align with human cognitive and emotional processes.
The degree to which a product's elements are consistent with each other. Crucial for creating a cohesive and intuitive user experience.
An approach to design that aligns design activities with strategic business goals, ensuring that design contributes to overall organizational success. Essential for integrating design into the strategic planning process and achieving business objectives.
Fundamental guidelines that inform and shape the design process, ensuring consistency, usability, and effectiveness in product creation. Essential for creating coherent, user-centered designs that align with organizational goals and user needs.
The principles and guidelines that govern the moral and ethical aspects of design, ensuring that designs are socially responsible and beneficial. Crucial for creating designs that are ethical, inclusive, and socially responsible.
An overarching idea or theme that guides the design process, providing direction and coherence to the final product. Essential for ensuring that all design elements align with a central vision and purpose.
A user-centered design process that involves understanding users' needs and workflows through field research and applying these insights to design. Essential for creating designs that are deeply informed by user contexts and behaviors.
The practice of deeply understanding and sharing the feelings of users to create products and services that truly meet their needs. Crucial for creating user-centered designs that resonate with users' emotions and experiences.
User-Centered Design (UCD) is an iterative design approach that focuses on understanding users' needs, preferences, and limitations throughout the design process. Crucial for creating products that are intuitive, efficient, and satisfying for the intended users.
A framework used in graphic and web design to organize content in a structured and consistent manner. Essential for creating balanced and readable layouts.
An activity during a design audit where printed screens representing customer journeys are reviewed collaboratively with stakeholders to assess design quality and identify areas for improvement. Essential for ensuring design consistency, gathering feedback, and making informed decisions on design enhancements.
A design process model that outlines four phases: Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver, promoting both divergent and convergent thinking. Crucial for structuring the design process and fostering both creativity and precision.
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.
Principle of Least Astonishment (POLA) is a design guideline stating that interfaces should behave in a way that users expect to avoid confusion. Crucial for enhancing user experience and reducing the learning curve in digital products.
The practice of guiding and inspiring teams to create effective, user-centered design solutions that align with business goals. Crucial for fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and excellence in design practices within organizations.
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.
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.
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.
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.
An iterative design process that focuses on the users and their needs at every phase of the design process. Crucial for creating products that are effective, efficient, and satisfying for the end users.
A framework that incorporates privacy considerations into the design and development of products and services from the outset. Crucial for ensuring user privacy and compliance with data protection regulations.
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.
A model by Don Norman outlining the cognitive steps users take when interacting with a system: goal formation, planning, specifying, performing, perceiving, interpreting, and comparing. Important for designing user-friendly and effective products by understanding and supporting user behavior at each stage.
A fictional character created to represent a user type that might use a site, brand, or product in a similar way, guiding design decisions. Essential for user-centered design, ensuring that products meet the needs of target users.
An approach that places the user's needs, preferences, and behaviors at the forefront of all design and development activities. Important for fostering a design culture that prioritizes user satisfaction and engagement.
The study of how the brain perceives and responds to art and design, exploring the neural basis for aesthetic experiences. Important for understanding the neurological underpinnings of aesthetic preferences and enhancing design impact.
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.
A Gestalt principle that states objects that are close to each other tend to be perceived as a group. Crucial for creating intuitive and organized visual designs that align with natural perceptual tendencies.
The tendency to perceive and interpret information based on prior experiences and expectations, influencing how different users perceive design differently. Important for designing interfaces that meet user expectations, improving usability and intuitive navigation.
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.
The study of how humans interact with systems and products, focusing on improving usability and performance. Crucial for designing user-friendly systems and products.
A research process used to identify and understand the underlying needs of users to inform the design of products and services. Essential for creating user-centered designs that address real user needs.
The ability to understand and share the feelings of customers, crucial for creating user-centered designs and experiences. Crucial for designing products that truly meet user needs and expectations.
The practice of promoting and representing the needs, interests, and rights of users in the design and development process. Important for ensuring that user needs and perspectives are prioritized in product design and development.
A dark pattern where users think they are going to take one action, but a different, undesirable action happens instead. Designers must avoid this deceptive practice and be aware of its impact to ensure transparent user interactions.
The process of applying a consistent style, motif, or brand identity across a piece of work, design, or user experience to create coherence and enhance the overall aesthetic. Essential for ensuring visual consistency, reinforcing brand identity, and providing users with a unified and engaging experience.
A dark pattern where a process is made more difficult than it needs to be to discourage certain behavior. Recognizing the harm of this practice is important to design straightforward user processes.
User Experience (UX) refers to the overall experience of a person using a product, system, or service, encompassing all aspects of the end-user's interaction. Crucial for creating products that are not only functional but also enjoyable, efficient, and satisfying to use.
A common pattern of eye movement where users scan web content in an "F" shape, focusing on the top and left side of the page. Crucial for designing web content that aligns with natural reading patterns to improve engagement.
A user research technique where participants organize information into categories to inform information architecture and design. Essential for creating intuitive information architectures and improving user experience.
The worth of something based on its ability to help achieve a desired end or goal. Useful for understanding and prioritizing design elements that contribute to user goals.
A strategic planning technique that uses visual maps to align activities with business goals and user needs. Essential for ensuring that development efforts are aligned with strategic objectives.
The tendency for individuals to recall information that is consistent with their current mood. Important for understanding how mood affects memory and designing experiences that account for emotional states.
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.
Information provided by users about their experience with a product, used to inform improvements and adjustments. Crucial for continuous improvement and user-centered design.
A dark pattern where options that benefit the service provider are pre-selected for the user. Designers should avoid default selections and ensure users make active choices that are in their best interest.
The drive to perform an activity for its inherent satisfaction rather than for some separable consequence. Crucial for designing experiences that engage users through inherent enjoyment and interest.
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.
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 phenomenon where vivid mental images can interfere with actual perception, causing individuals to mistake imagined experiences for real ones. Important for ensuring that marketing and product design set realistic user expectations to avoid disappointment and maintain brand integrity.
Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) is a framework that focuses on understanding the tasks users are trying to accomplish with a product, emphasizing their goals and motivations over product features. Crucial for designing products that meet real user needs and motivations.
A series of numbers where each number is the sum of the two preceding ones, creating a pattern found in nature and various fields. Useful for understanding natural growth patterns, efficient estimation techniques, and its relationship to the aesthetically pleasing Golden Ratio.
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.
The study of how people acquire knowledge, skills, and behaviors through experience, practice, and instruction. Useful for creating educational content and interactive tutorials that enhance user learning.
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.
Model-View-Controller (MVC) is an architectural pattern that separates an application into three main logical components: the Model (data), the View (user interface), and the Controller (processes that handle input). Essential for creating modular, maintainable, and scalable software applications by promoting separation of concerns.