A cognitive bias where people assume others share the same beliefs, values, or preferences as themselves. Important for helping designers avoid projecting their own biases and assumptions onto users during research and design.
A qualitative research method involving direct conversations with users to gather insights into their needs, behaviors, and experiences. Essential for gaining deep insights into user perspectives and informing design decisions.
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 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 fictional representation of a user segment, created based on user research to guide design decisions and ensure the product meets the needs of its target audience. Crucial for keeping design efforts focused on user needs and preferences.
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.
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 collaborative tool used to visualize what a user thinks, feels, says, and does to better understand their experiences and needs. Essential for gaining deep insights into user behavior and guiding design decisions.
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.
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 process of guiding new users through the initial stages of using a product or service, helping them become familiar with its features and benefits. Essential for enhancing user retention and satisfaction by ensuring a smooth introduction to the product.
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.
Small bits of text in user interfaces, such as instructions, labels, and error messages, that help guide users through interactions. Essential for enhancing user experience and providing clear guidance.
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 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.
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.
Pre-set options in a system that are designed to benefit users by simplifying decisions and guiding them towards the best choices. Essential for improving user experience and ensuring that users make optimal decisions with minimal effort.
Human-Centered Design (HCD) is an approach to problem-solving that involves the human perspective in all steps of the process. It ensures designs are user-friendly and meet actual user needs.
The psychological phenomenon where humorous content is more easily remembered and perceived positively by users. Useful for creating engaging and memorable user experiences.
Qualitative data that provides insights into the context and human aspects behind quantitative data. Crucial for gaining deep insights into user behaviors and motivations.
A psychological phenomenon where people develop a preference for things simply because they are familiar with them. Crucial for designing user experiences that leverage familiarity to increase user comfort and satisfaction.
The ability of a product or service to keep users engaged and returning over time, often measured by metrics such as retention rate. Crucial for evaluating user loyalty and the long-term success of a product.
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.
The Principle of Exemplars is an information architecture guideline that uses representative examples to illustrate content categories. Crucial for enhancing user understanding and facilitating content discovery.
The process of understanding user behaviors, needs, and motivations through various qualitative and quantitative methods. Essential for designing user-centered products and ensuring they meet actual user needs.
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 path taken by a user to complete a task on a website or application, including all the steps and interactions along the way. Essential for designing intuitive and efficient user experiences.
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 set of fundamental principles and guidelines that inform and shape user research practices. Crucial for maintaining consistency and ensuring high-quality user insights.
The application of behavioral science principles to improve the design and usability of digital products, focusing on user behavior and interactions. Important for creating user experiences that are intuitive and engaging by leveraging behavioral insights.
An approach to design that considers the entire user journey and all touchpoints, ensuring a seamless and cohesive experience. Crucial for creating integrated and satisfying user experiences across multiple channels and interactions.
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 dark pattern where users are forced to sign up for an account to complete a basic task. Designers should avoid this practice and provide optional account creation to respect user preferences.
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 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.
A strategic framework that designs user experiences to guide behavior and decisions towards desired outcomes. Crucial for creating effective and ethical influence in digital interfaces.
A dark pattern where the design focuses the user's attention on one thing to distract them from another. Designers should avoid this deceptive tactic and ensure user attention is not unfairly diverted.
A technique that visualizes the process users go through to achieve a goal with a product or service. Essential for identifying pain points and optimizing user interactions to improve overall experience.
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.
The path or sequence of actions users follow based on information scent to find their desired information. Crucial for understanding user behavior and optimizing content discovery paths.
A research method used to determine how desirable a product or feature is to potential users. Crucial for understanding user preferences and guiding product development.
The tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control events. Important for understanding user behavior and designing experiences that manage expectations.
The percentage of users who continue to use a product or service over a specified period, indicating user loyalty and engagement. Essential for assessing the effectiveness of user retention strategies and improving user experience.
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 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.
A dark pattern where the user is required to do something in order to access certain functionality or information. Designers must avoid compulsory actions and provide optional choices to respect user autonomy.
An action in a user interface that, once performed, cannot be undone and typically involves deleting or removing content. Important for emphasizing the severity of the action and ensuring user confirmation to prevent accidental data loss.
Visual cues or instructions integrated into an interface to guide users on how to use certain features or functionalities. Important for improving user onboarding and enhancing the user experience.
A guided, interactive overlay that introduces users to features or tasks within an application. Crucial for onboarding new users and enhancing user understanding of complex features.
A cognitive bias where people overestimate the probability of success for difficult tasks and underestimate it for easy tasks. Useful for designers to understand user confidence and design
The tendency for people's perception to be affected by their recurring thoughts at the time. Important for understanding how current thoughts influence user perception and decision-making.
The effort required for users to complete a task or interaction within a system. Essential for optimizing usability and minimizing user effort.
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 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 dark pattern where users are shown a preview of content that is then gated behind a paywall or sign-up. It's crucial to avoid this misleading practice and be transparent about access requirements.
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.
A design principle that suggests interfaces should minimize the need for users to recall information from memory, instead providing cues to aid recognition. Essential for creating user-friendly interfaces that reduce cognitive load and improve usability.
The design of user interfaces for machines and software, such as computers, mobile devices, and other electronic devices, with the focus on maximizing usability and the user experience. Essential for ensuring that digital products are intuitive and easy to use.
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 data visualization technique that shows the intensity of data points with varying colors, often used to represent user interactions on a website. Essential for understanding user behavior and identifying areas of interest or concern in digital product interfaces.