Glossary

80/20 Rule

A high percentage of effects in any system is caused by a low percentage of variables.

Accessibility

The ability to access/use/interact with a product or service without modifications.

Aesthetic-Usability Effect

Aesthetic things are perceived to be easier to use than ugly things.

Affordances

Properties that indicate how an object can or should be used by a user. (usability cues)

Physical affordances are built into the product. (usability)

Perceived affordances are what the user identifies as uses. (user experience)

Hidden affordances are physical affordances that are not perceived.

False Affordances are perceived affordances that are not actually there.

Bartle’s Four Player Types

Richard Bartle discerned that different users have different goals whose goals vary differently in how they interact in their respective environments. He later coined the terms Explorers, Achievers, Socializers, Killers, to differentiates.

Biophilia Effect

A state of reduced stress and improved concentration resulting from nature views.

Blue

Generally a popular color, blue signals friendliness and peacefulness, fosters openness and creativity, and promotes aspirational thinking.

Cognitive Dissonance

A state of mental discomfort due to incompatible attitudes, thoughts, and beliefs.

Computational Offloading

Using a tool to execute a process to help alleviate the brain of cognition (such as using a calculator or pen and paper).

Consistency

Keeping similar aesthetics or functionality to improve user trust, usability, and memorability. Can be split into the sub-categories of external & internal or functional & aesthetic.

Functional Consistency: Using similar elements or iconic representation for similar functions/tasks.

Aesthetic Consistency: Using similar style and appearances across a family of products.

Internal Consistency: designing functions, interfaces, and the such to similar within an application.

External Consistency: designing things to be simliar across applications and devices.

Constraint

Limiting the actions that can be performing to simplify use and prevent error.

Contour Bias

A tendency to favor objects with contours over objects with sharp angles or points.

Contrast

A type of highlighting; making an element stand out by manipulating differences in color, value, size and other factors.

Control

The level of user control should be related to the proficiency and experience of the user.

Depth of Processing

Thinking hard about a thing improves the likelihood that it can be recalled.

Desire Lines

Traces of use or wear that indicate preferred methods of interaction.

Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)

A dual process theory that splits the path of persuasion into two parts; the central processing route which is more cognitive and content-based, and the peripheral processing route which is based on content-exterior factors.

Entry Point

A point of physical or attentional entry that sets the emotional tone for subsequent interactions.

Errors

An action or omission of action yielding an unintended result.

Expectation Effects

Changes in perceptions or behavior resulting from personal expectations or expectations of others.

Feature Creep

A continuous expansion or addition of new product features.

Feedback

Outputs that provide cues to the user to ensure they kknow what to do next in their tasks.

Figure-Ground

Elements are perceived as either figures or ground.

Flexibility Trade-Off

As the flexibility of a design increases, the usability and performance of the design decreases.

Form Follows Function

Aesthetic considerations should be secondary to functional considerations.

Framing

The method of presenting choices in specific ways to influence decision making and judgment.

Freeze-Flight-Fight-Forfeit

When people are exposed to acute stress or threatening situations, their instinctive responses are to freeze, flee, fight, and forfeit, in that order.

Gamification

Using gaming strategies like rewarding certain behaviors, providing frequent feedback, and illustrating achievements in nongame contexts to enhance experience and modify behavior.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

The quality of system output is largely dependent on the quality of system input.

Gloss Bias

A preference for glossy versus dull objects.

Good Continuation

The tendency to perceive lines as continuing their established directions.

Graphic User Interface

A GUI (pronounced “gooey”) is a user interface for the purpose of graphically interacting with an electronic device that features an assortment of windows, icons, menus, and pointing devices instead of text-based user interfaces.

Green

Typically associated with safety, security, nature, and sustainability, green environments reduce stress and mental fatigue – promoting problem solving and creativity.

Grice’s Maxims

A set of assumed conversational norms that occur when engaging in socializing; Quantity, Quality (truth), Relevance, and Manner.

Gulf of Execution

The gap between the intentions of the users and what the system allows them to do /how well the actions were supported.

Hick’s Law

The time it takes to make a decision increases with the number of options.

Hierarchy

The arrangement or presentation of elements in a way that implies importance and helps visually understand complex information.

Highlighting

A technique for focusing attention on an area of text or image.

Horror Vacui

A tendency to fill blank spaces with things rather than leaving spaces empty.

Icons

Graphics used to represent objects or functions, and aid in learning and memory.

IKEA Effect

The act of creating a thing increases the perceived value of that thing to the creator.

Ingroup

A social group to which a person psychological identifies as a member.

Internet of Things (IOT)

The network of physical objects that contain embedded technology to sense environment factors and communicate these via the Internet to the user and the company/service provider.

Iterations

The process of exploring, testing, and refining designs to create the optimal product based on feedback.

Keep It Simple Stupid

Kelly Johnson’s KISS emphasizes that simple designs work better and are more reliable.

Legibility

The visual clarity of text, generally based on size, typeface, contrast, line length, and spacing.

Most Advanced Yet Acceptable

Proposed by Raymond Loewy, the MAYA principle states that a product’s most commercially viable design is a balancing act between stretching aesthetic uniqueness and recognizable familiarity.

Mental Models

People understand and interact with things in the real world based on mental simulations of previous experience on how things work (familiar things frame future interactions).

Mere-Exposure Effect

The more people are exposed to a stimulus, the more they like it.

Mimicry

Copying pre-existing solution to problems from familiar things in order to realize benefits of those properties. Can be copying the way things look, act, or work.

Natural Mapping

A strong correspondence in layout and movement between controls and the things they control make things intuitive to use.

Norman’s Fundamental Argument

Don Norman’s groundbreaking book, The Design of Everyday Things, centers around the idea that ‘you should be able to tell how to use something just by looking’.

Nudge

Persuasively modifying behavior without restricting options or changing incentives through smart defaults, clear feedback, aligned incentives, structured choices, and visible goals.

Ockham’s Razor

Simple designs should be prefferred and functionality without ornamentation often means cutting unnecessary elements.

Organization (Five Hat Racks)

Five ways information can be organized are through category, time, location, alphabet, and continuum.

Performance Load

The mental and physical effort required to complete a task.

Picture Superiority Effect

Pictures are remembered better than words.

Priming

Activating specific concepts in memory to influence subsequent thoughts and behaviors.

Progressive Disclosure

A method of managing complexity, in which only necessary or requested information is displayed.

Proximity

The human eye perceives connections between visual elements that are close to each other to be related when compared with elements that are separate from each other.

Recall

Relates to knowledge-in-the-head and memorability, it is the ability to draw from long-term and short-term memory and requires learning. This type of memory procedure requires learning and is efficient but is not easily retrieved.

Reciprocity

The tendency for people to give back to those who have given to them.

Recognition

Relates to knowledge-in-the-world and learnability, it is the ability to know how to do something based on natural mapping and reminders through the likes of signals and messages.

Rosetta Stone

Communicating novel information using elements of common understanding.

Signal-to-Noise Ratio

The ratio of relevant to irrelevant information.

Technology Acceptance Model

What determines how likely a users comes to accept and use a new technology is the users’ perception of usefulness and ease of use.

Turing Test

Developed by Alan Turing, it is a test for determining a machine’s “intelligence” or rather whether a computer is capable of thinking/acting like a human by requiring that a human being be unable to distinguish the machine from another human being.

Uncanny Valley

Both abstract and realistic depictions of human features are appealing, but faces, voices, bodies, and the such in between are not.

Visibility

Things in clear view are more likely to be used than things not in clear view.

Wayfinding

The process of using spatial and environmental information to navigate to a destination.