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.
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.
A design philosophy that emphasizes core design principles over rigid adherence to standardized processes. Essential for maintaining creativity and innovation in large-scale, process-driven environments.
The degree to which a system's components may be separated and recombined, often used in the context of software or hardware design. Important for enhancing flexibility, reusability, and ease of maintenance in design.
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.
A framework used in graphic and web design to organize content in a structured and consistent manner. Essential for creating balanced and readable layouts.
Design patterns that adapt to different screen sizes and devices, ensuring a consistent user experience. Crucial for creating designs that work well across a variety of devices.
Replacing one UI component with another, often used in adaptive or dynamic interfaces. Crucial for maintaining flexibility and adaptability in UI design.
A cognitive bias that limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used. Important for designers to foster creative problem-solving and innovation.
The ability of a UI component to adjust its appearance and behavior based on different contexts or devices. Crucial for responsive design and ensuring a consistent user experience.
The Principle of Objects is an information architecture guideline that treats content as living, distinct entities with behaviors and attributes. Crucial for creating modular, reusable, and flexible content structures.
A design approach that divides a system into smaller parts or modules that can be independently created, modified, replaced, or exchanged. Crucial for creating flexible, scalable, and maintainable systems.
A dynamic aspect ratio that adjusts based on the container or screen size. Important for responsive design, ensuring elements remain proportional across devices.
Responsive Web Design (RWD) is an approach to web design that makes web pages render well on a variety of devices and window or screen sizes. Essential for creating flexible, adaptive web experiences that maintain functionality and aesthetics across different platforms and devices.
A principle stating that a system should be liberal in what it accepts and conservative in what it sends, meaning it should handle user input flexibly while providing clear, consistent output, similar to the principle of fault tolerance. Essential for designing robust and user-friendly interfaces that accommodate a wide range of user inputs and behaviors while maintaining reliability and clarity in responses.
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 collection of reusable UI components that can be used to build applications. Helps in maintaining consistency and efficiency in the design and development process.
Also known as "Maslow's Hammer," a cognitive bias where people rely too heavily on a familiar tool or method, often summarized as "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.". Important for designers to recognize and avoid over-reliance on familiar methods in problem-solving and design.
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.
The concept of providing flexible and adaptive user interactions based on user input and behavior. Crucial for creating responsive and personalized user experiences.
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.
The process of enabling users to take control of their interactions with a product or system, enhancing their confidence and satisfaction. Crucial for designing systems that provide users with the tools and information they need to make informed decisions.
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.
3-Tiered Architecture is a software design pattern that separates an application into three layers: presentation, logic, and data. Crucial for improving scalability, maintainability, and flexibility in software development.
Business Process Modeling Language (BPML) is a language used for modeling business processes, enabling the design and implementation of process-based applications. Important for defining complex business processes and ensuring their effective implementation in digital products.
The ability of an organization to adapt quickly to market changes and external forces while maintaining a focus on delivering value. Essential for fostering an adaptable and resilient design and development process.
Joint Application Development (JAD) is a collaborative approach to gathering requirements and designing solutions in software development projects. It facilitates rapid decision-making and consensus-building by bringing together key stakeholders, including users, developers, and project managers, in structured workshop sessions.
A key aspect of Gestalt psychology in which simple geometrical objects are recognized independent of rotation, translation, and scale. Crucial for understanding how users perceive and recognize patterns in design.
A specific viewport dimension at which a website's layout adjusts to provide an optimal viewing experience across different screen sizes. Crucial for responsive web design to ensure usability on various devices.
Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is a methodology that uses visual modeling to support system requirements, design, analysis, and validation activities throughout the development lifecycle. Essential for managing complex systems, improving communication among stakeholders, and enhancing the overall quality and efficiency of systems engineering processes.
The degree to which users feel they have control over their actions and decisions when interacting with a product or system. Crucial for designing systems that empower users and enhance their sense of control and satisfaction.
The number of pixels per inch (PPI) on a display, affecting the sharpness and clarity of visual elements. Crucial for optimizing visual content for different devices.
The ability of users to influence the behavior and outcomes of a system or product, allowing them to interact with it according to their preferences. Essential for creating user-friendly interfaces that allow for flexibility and customization.
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.
Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) is a visual representation of the relationships between entities in a database. Essential for designing and understanding the data structure and relationships within digital products.
A project or venture that starts from scratch, with no constraints imposed by prior work, enabling innovation and flexibility in development. Essential for recognizing opportunities for innovation and fresh development in business initiatives.
A design approach that focuses on building a robust core experience first, then adding more advanced features and capabilities for users with more capable browsers or devices. Essential for ensuring a consistent and accessible user experience across different devices and browsers.
The Principle of Growth is an information architecture guideline that plans for the future expansion and evolution of a system. Crucial for ensuring that information structures can scale and adapt over time.
A hybrid Agile project management framework that combines elements of Scrum and Kanban to improve flexibility and workflow management. Useful for teams seeking to blend the structured approach of Scrum with the visual workflow of Kanban.
Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse (SCAMPER) is a creative thinking technique that encourages innovation in a product or process. Useful for generating new ideas and improving existing products or processes.
Representational State Transfer (REST) is an architectural style for designing networked applications based on stateless, client-server communication. Essential for building scalable and efficient web services.
The visual elements of a brand, such as color, design, and logo, that communicate the brand to consumers. Crucial for creating a consistent and recognizable brand presence.
Numeronym for the word "Modularization" (M + 12 letters + N), dividing a system into separate, interchangeable modules that can be developed, tested, and maintained independently. Important for improving maintainability and scalability of systems.
The set of shared values, practices, and goals that characterize a startup company. Important for fostering innovation, agility, and a collaborative environment within product design teams.
A software application that combines elements of both native and web applications, running inside a native container. Important for leveraging the advantages of both web and native technologies, providing a balance of performance and flexibility.
A product development methodology that emphasizes shaping work before starting it, fixing time and team size but leaving scope flexible to ensure high-quality outcomes. Crucial for managing product development efficiently and delivering high-quality results within constraints.
An Agile project management framework that uses iterative cycles, called sprints, to deliver incremental improvements and adapt to changing requirements. Crucial for managing projects in a flexible and iterative manner, ensuring continuous improvement and responsiveness.
Adaptive Software Development (ASD) is a software development methodology that focuses on continuous adaptation to changing requirements and environments. Essential for managing changing requirements and ensuring agile project delivery.
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.
The process of anticipating future developments to ensure that a product or system remains relevant and functional over time. Essential for designing durable and adaptable products.
The ability of a system, product, or process to handle increased loads or expand without compromising performance or efficiency. Essential for ensuring that products and systems can grow and adapt to increasing demands.
Large Language Model (LLM) is an advanced artificial intelligence system trained on vast amounts of text data to understand and generate human-like text. Essential for natural language processing tasks, content generation, and enhancing human-computer interactions across various applications in product design and development.
New Product Development (NPD) is the complete process of bringing a new product to market, from idea generation to commercialization. Essential for companies to innovate, stay competitive, and meet evolving customer needs through a structured approach to creating and launching new offerings.
Minimum Marketable Feature (MMF) is the smallest set of functionality that delivers significant value to users and can be marketed effectively. Crucial for prioritizing development efforts and releasing valuable product increments quickly, balancing user needs with business objectives.
A form of regression analysis where the relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable is modeled as an nth degree polynomial. Useful for modeling non-linear relationships in digital product data analysis.
Goals, Ideas, Steps, and Tasks (GIST) is an agile planning technique to break down projects into manageable parts. Essential for organizing and executing agile projects effectively.
SAFe is a framework designed to scale agile practices across large organizations by integrating agile and lean principles. It is widely used but criticized for its rigidity, bureaucratic structure, and potential to stifle true agile culture.
Business Rules Engine (BRE) is a software system that executes one or more business rules in a runtime production environment. Crucial for automating decision-making processes and ensuring consistency and compliance in digital products.
Business Process Management Software (BPMS) refers to tools and systems that help organizations design, model, execute, monitor, and optimize their business processes. Essential for improving operational efficiency and ensuring that digital products support effective business processes.
A strategic approach where multiple potential solutions are tested to identify the most promising one. Crucial for innovation and reducing risk in decision-making.
An approach that applies Agile principles to IT operations, emphasizing iterative development, collaboration, and continuous improvement. Essential for enhancing flexibility, responsiveness, and collaboration in product design and development processes.