3-click rule - User should be able to find any info with no more than 3 mouse clicks (or finger taps)
5-second test - users get an impression/idea within 5 seconds of viewing a product
A/B testing - Compare two versions of a product to determine which one performs better
Accessibility - Practice of making products usable by as many people as possible
Alpha Test - Developers test a product to ensure it meets the business requirements and functions properly. Done before beta testing
Beta Test - Testing before a product is released to wide audiences. Check out some beta testing resources here
Cognitive Walkthrough - See if tasks can be performed in the correct sequence of actions they were designed in, and to understand learnability
Customer Experience (CX) - All interactions between customers and your design/brand, including overall experience, likelihood to continue use, and likelihood to recommend to others
Customer Journey Map (CJM) - Tool to understand what motivates your users - what their needs are, their hesitations, and concerns
F-pattern - Moving downwards in a horizontal direction, forming an “F” shape on the page. Focus is concentrated at the top and the left side of the page.
Human Centered Design - Design involving human perspective in every steps of the problem-solving process
Impact Map - Graphic planning method to decide which features to build into a product
Information Architecture (IA) - Structured design of information within a project; organizing, structuring, and labeling content in an effective and sustainable way
Mental Model - Explanation of thought process about how something works in the real world
Mindmap - Diagram used to visually organize info, also known as wordmap (using text) is hierarchical and shows relationships between elements AND the big picture
Minimum Viable Product (MVP) - Product version with just enough features to satisfy early customers and provide feedback for future product development.
Mockup - Model/replica of a product, used for instructional or experimental purposes. Could also mean a photo-realistic rendering of a physical product (such as an iphone or macbook) onto which you could place your design
Site Map - List of pages of a web site, often organized by hierarchy. Create sitemaps using these diagram makers
Prototype - Early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process
Responsive Web Design (RWD) - Web product can adjust to accommodate different screen sizes
UI Design - Refers to user interaction design OR user interface
Use cases - Written description of how users will perform tasks on your website
User flow - Path taken by a prototypical user on a website or app to complete a task
User Interaction - How the user acts on a product and how the product responds
User Interface - Access points where users interact with designs
Graphical User Interface - Form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio, instead of just text
Wireframe - Visual representation of a user interface
Balance - Distribution of the visual weight of objects, colors, texture, and space
Fontsmith's A-Z of Typographic Terms - Detailed list of typographic parts and terms, with charts
Gestalt - People do not visually perceive items in isolation, but as part of a larger whole.
Golden Ratio - Designs that align with the golden ratio are perceived as more unified. Read about the math here. Here are also some critiques of the Golden Ratio
Rule of Thirds - draws the viewer's eye into the composition, instead of just glancing at the center. Mostly applied in photography, but applicable to layout design too
16px (standard 1em) - In almost every browser, 16px is the standard for proportional fonts
Modular Scaling - Sequence of numbers that relate to one another in a meaningful way. Designs using a modular scale will look more unified and organized
Bias - Preference, prejudice, or tendency that can affect a subject’s behavior during testing. These should be avoided as much as possible so your results don’t get skewed
Confounding variable - Suggest there is correlation when there actually isn’t
Convenience/ Opportunity Sampling - Using the people near you or whomever is easily available as subjects. This is sometimes a bad sampling practice since you might not be sampling from your target demographic. You might also find user bias and confounding variables
Generalisability - Extent to which findings can be applied to the complete target population
Heuristic Evaluation - Holistic test to see if the thing you’re testing is a design pattern or follows recognized usability principles
Observation - Controlled observation of users means to examine how users interact with what you’re testing without interfering with how they interact with your prototype
Random Sampling - When everyone in a target demographic has an equal chance of being selected. No testing is truly random, but ideally we can get close
Sample - Participants that you select from a target population
Stratified Sampling - When subgroups (such as gender identity or age) are identified and participants are selected in proportion to those subgroups
Subject - An individual you’re conducting a (user) test on
Systematic Sampling - sampling users using a system
Target Population - Total group from which subjects can be found from
Think Aloud - Ask participants to test your product while saying what they’re thinking/ vocalizing their action for a better grasp of their thought process
Volunteer Sample - Participants opt into your study
ComputerHope - List of common file extensions and what they do
UI/UX Glossary - List of UIUX terms, you can also check out this site's Terms to Know
UX Design Glossary - List of UX terms focusing on Customer Experience