Topics

A glossary of terms referenced throughout this site.

Accessibility

Make your products more accessible.
Affinity Diagram

Affinity diagram is a tool to help you see patterns in the raw data you collected.
Agile

Generally describes an iterative product development process most often found in teams working on software, sometimes applied elsewhere.
Android

Google’s mobile operating system.
Animation

Use subtle animations to improve usability and orientation.
App Map

Map the high-level overview of the interfaces and flows of an app.
Benchmarking

See Competitive Analysis.
Brand

Use visual and linguistic cues to express and position a product or company in a market.
Business

Money makes the world go ’round.
Business Goals

How will your design work help grow or improve the business?
Card Sorting

Method used to identify how people organize and look for information, helpful for making navigation decisions.
Career
Collaboration

People are hard.
Color

Use color to add personality, meaning, and dimension to designs, while maintaining legibility and accessibility.
Colors
Competitive Analysis

Desk research done to gather information about strengths and weaknesses of competitors, to aid in making better product decisions.
Components
Composition

The arrangement of elements on the screen (or page).
Content

The raw material of a digital product, generally what someone is there to find.
Content Audit

A detailed process for identifying and cataloging pages in a content-heavy website.
Content Strategy

Organizing, planning, and scheduling content.
Controls

A control allows users to change something using the interface that they are interacting with.
Critique
CSS

Cascading Style Sheets are used to provide suggestions to web browsers about how content should be presented visually.
CSS Animation

See Motion.
CSS Grid

A CSS specification for grid-based layouts in web browsers.
Customization

When the user can modify their experience or interface in some way.
Define
Design Decisions
Design Ethics
Design Implementation
Design Process

A general way of planning and executing design work.
Design Reports
Design Systems

An overarching set of high- to low-level design decisions documented in some way to maintain coherency and ease ongoing design decisions.
Design Thinking

Describes a mindset and way of approaching problem-solving, generally in a human-centered way.
Desirability
Diagram
Discovery
Divergent
Double Diamond

A useful way of thinking about design as a series of divergent and convergent processes.
Emotion
Empathy
Evaluative Research
Exploration
Feedback
Fidelity
Figma
Findability
Flexbox

A CSS specification for simple layouts in web browsers.
Flexible Layout
Focus
Forms

At some point, most interfaces need to gather information from a user. Generally this is done with a form.
Frontend
Happy Path
Heuristic Evaluation
Heuristics

“Rules of thumb” used to guide analysis of existing systems and the evaluation of new ones. Best practice not to think of these as “best practices”—different heuristics may serve you better in different contexts.
Hierarchy
Hotspot
HTML

HyperText Markup Language, used to write, uh, web pages.
Human Interface Guidelines
Icon
Ideation
Inclusive Design
Information Architecture

Organize the structure of digital products to improve navigation and management of content.
Insight
Inspiration

Steal like an artist.
Interaction
Interaction Design
Interface
Interface Controls
Interface Layout
Interview

Conversations with people to surface evidence about their needs.
iOS
Iteration
Job Search
Jobs To Be Done

A way of thinking about products from the perspective of user goals. What does someone hire the product to do?
Layout
Lean

See Agile.
Macro-interaction
Macrocopy
Material Design
Media Query
Mental Model
Micro-interaction
Microcopy

Bits of text used in interfaces to guide, support, and inform.
Moodboard

Collection of visual inspiration to help establish look and feel for a brand or product.
Motion

Use motion to clarify interactions.
Native App

An application built to run on a specific platform, such as iOS, Android, Windows, or Mac. The term is used to differentiate from a web-based app, or “web app”.
Navigation

How a user gets around in an app or website.
Observation

Observe users to gather behavioral evidence.
Paper Prototype
Patterns
Persona

A distillation of findings from user research into an fictional individual representing a realistic user of a product.
Personality
Personalization

Adapting the interface or content of a product based on information about the user.
Planning
Portfolio

A collection of work samples showcasing work product, skills, services offered, and often process.
Presentation
Presenting Design
Prioritization

Ranking according to some criteria, commonly to determine relative value of various features in a system.
Problem Definition

Gaining clarity over what problem(s) to address lends focus to our work and gives us criteria by which to make and evaluate decisions.
Problem Statement

Succinctly describe the problem your work is trying to address. Should serve as a tool to keep your work on task, assess your results against, and communicate to other stakeholders what your work’s purpose has been.
Product Development
Progressive Disclosure

A strategy for hiding lower priority elements in an interface, which can be revealed when needed, in an effort to reduce clutter.
Project Planning
Proto-persona
Prototype
Prototyping

Make cheap drafts of products and features to determine quickly what ideas are worth pursuing.
Quantitative
Research Recruiting
Resources
Responsive

Generally used to describe websites which adapt their layouts based on available screen size.
Scenario

A context and situation in which someone would use a product. Typically paired with a persona.
Sitemap

An overview of all the pages in a website, typically organized in a tree diagram.
Sketch

Sketch is a vector graphics editor specialized in the design of User Interfaces.
Sketch App Resources
Sketch Plugins
Sketching
Slide Design
Snowball Recruiting
Spreadsheet
Staged Disclosure

In a longer process, it may be useful to break things up into steps to reduce clutter and overwhelm.
Storytelling
Strategy
Style Tile

A collection of type, color, texture, and interface styles used to explore visual options early in a digital project. Especially helpful when working with clients.
Survey

Use surveys to understand some basic information about users and their needs, as well as gather preferences and attitudinal data.
Synthesis
Task Analysis

Break down how people currently accomplish certain tasks to thoroughly understand needs and identify opportunities to simplify workflows.
Taxonomy
Testing

Testing products and designs can be useful at many stages of the design process to generate ideas, evaluate options, and identify pain points.
Timeboxing
Typography

Use type to lay out information and interfaces, with a focus on clarity.
UI State

Interfaces often convey some type of state, such as active or inactive, empty or full, successful or not, etc.
Usability

Is the user able to figure out what it does and how to use it?
Usability Evaluation
Usability Testing
Use Case

When planning a product or feature, a use case outlines a particular goal users should be able to accomplish, usually broken down into steps.
User Experience
User Flow
User Interface

The point of contact between the user and the technology.
User Interface State
User Journey

Maps a person’s experience with a service, typically across multiple touchpoints, usually visualizing their level of happiness and frustration.
User Research

Who are our users? What do they need? How can we serve them better?
User Story

“As a [type of user], I want to [do something] so I can [motivation].”
UX Writing
Visual Design
Voice
Web Development
Wireflow
Wireframe
Writing

Brevity is the soul of wit.