Glossary

Definitions

A glossary of UX and digital design terms.

UX Design

Multiple design disciplines combined improving usability, responsiveness, uptake, and aesthetics of products and services.

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UI Design

Software interface design discipline focusing on efficiency, responsiveness, and aesthetics for good user experience.

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User Experience

All aspects of user participation including interactions, reactions, emotions, and perceptions engaging with designed things.

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User Interface

The conduit between human-computer interaction enabling users to control machines and receive feedback.

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User Journey

A sequence of events and experiences showing steps, choices, and resulting actions during product or service use.

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Personas

Characterisation of user segments representing target audience needs and desires for design solutions.

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Wireframes

Low-fidelity visual schematics conveying basic structure and behaviour without detailed interface or visual design.

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Prototype

A draft representation testing ideas for layout, behaviour, and flow before full production deployment.

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User Testing

A technique evaluating products and features with real users to identify friction in a user experience before deployment.

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User Stories

Written descriptions of functionality from the user perspective, creating design and development task lists.

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Card Sorting

An inexpensive method for discovering how users organise content and functionality for information architecture.

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Information Architecture

The design and organisation of content, pages, and data into a structure that aids user understanding and task completion.

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Usability

A qualitative assessment of how learnable and easy a system is to use, key to good user experience.

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Responsive Web Design (RWD)

Web pages that dynamically adapt layout to device size and orientation for an optimised experience across all devices.

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Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

A product with the minimum features to prove an essential hypothesis, enabling further development informed by real feedback.

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Product Design

The "Product" is the website, service, application, or interactive thing being worked on. Similar to UX Design, combining multiple design disciplines.

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Call to Action (CTA)

A marketing prompt invoking user response; in digital design, the interactive element directing users to the next step.

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Sitemap

A diagrammatic representation showing hierarchical parent-sibling relationships between website pages.

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Brainstorming

A technique for generating ideas around specific topics, typically involving written association on paper or digital platforms.

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Content Management System (CMS)

A tool enabling website editors to manage displayed content without requiring coding knowledge, typically via WYSIWYG interface.

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WYSIWYG

What You See Is What You Get — an acronym for interfaces allowing user input rendered similarly to the final output.

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