UX sanasto

Beta testing

The second phase of software testing, sometimes referred to as user acceptance testing (UAT) or end user testing. The application is subjected to real world testing by the intended users in order to increase the feedback. The developers use these experiences to make final changes before releasing the software commercially.

User journey

The steps that the user must go through when interacting with a product or system from start to finish. The user journey takes into account the total user experience, so it will list all the steps involved in a journey, from landing on a website homepage to purchasing a product.

Visual design

The use of imagery, colour, shapes, typography and form to enhance usability and improve the user experience. Visual design as a field has grown out of user interface design and graphic design.

Digital transformation

The wholescale change of various areas of a business using digital technology to improve its performance, remain competitive and reach new sets of consumers.

System usability scale (SUS)

A commonly used, quick and reliable tool for measuring whether a product or system is ready to be used. It consists of a 10 item questionnaire with five response options for respondents from 'strongly agree' to 'strongly disagree'.

Desktop computer

A desktop computer (or desktop PC) is a computer that is designed to stay in a single location. Unlike laptops they cannot be powered from an internal battery and therefore must remain connected to a wall outlet.

Brand

A brand is the name/icon/design given to a product or service from a specific source. In additional to that, a brand is the perception of a business/product/service/person created in customers' minds, concerning its qualities and attributes. A personal brand is often related to how you present yourself and what you are known for. Your brand both personally and professionally will be defined by what your audience thinks when they hear your brand name.

Mood board

A collage or arrangement of images and text in one place (for example, a board) to express a certain topic or subject. It is often used to generate ideas or define the style of a project.

User centred mindset

A development approach that keeps the end user as a focus at all times during the development of a website or app in order to develop a product which provides the best user experience possible.

Persona

A fictional character which represents the type of customer that you are designing your product or site for. It answers the question, "Who are we designing for?" which can help you to understand your user goals and define your product.

Mind mapping

A graphical way to represent ideas and concepts by organising information to help you better analyse, understand and generate new ideas. Starting from a central theme or topic, each idea or fact is written down and then linked by lines or curves to another related idea or fact, creating a web of relationships.

Brainstorm

A group creativity technique used to generate new ideas or solve a specific problem. The group analyse, discuss and build on the all ideas raised, which are written down and (not criticised The ideas are evaluated when the session is over.

Guerrilla testing

A low cost testing technique that involves going to public places such as parks, coffee shops and shopping centres to get people to look at your product or prototype. The feedback from this testing is used to make further improvements.

Usability

A measure of the extent to which a product can be employed by users to achieve specific goals, with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction.

Pain point

A pain point Is any issue or frustration that a user experiences with a website, application or product. By creating solutions to a user's pain points a business can greatly enhance their user experience.

JavaScript

A programming language commonly used in web development, to add dynamic and interactive elements to websites such as forms and error messages.

Prototype

A prototype is an early sample. model, or release of a product. Jt's built to test whether a product will work if it is developed further, and how it can be improved.

Demographic

A section of the population sharing common characteristics, such as age, race or gender.

Focus group

A small group of people who are brought together with a moderator to provide feedback on a specific product or topic that is intended to represent the opinions of the general population Their feedback and opinions produce data which can be used for product changes or marketing strategy.

Widget

A small program and an element of a graphical user interface (GUI) that displays information or provides a specific way for a user to interact with the operating system or an application. Common widgets include weather guides and calendars

Content management system (CMS)

A software tool that allows you to create, edit and publish content with an intuitive user interface. Most CMS systems are now designed exclusively to manage content on the web, for example, WordPress, a free web software designed for creating template- based websites or blogs.

Stakeholder

A stakeholder is an individual or group that has an interest in the success of a company, organisation or project and can either affect it or be affected. For example, the stakeholders in a business will include its employees, customers and investors.

Diary testing

A technique for collecting data about a user's actions or experiences. The user enters their experiences in a physical or digital diary. This method is less costly than a field study, while still providing insights from a user's perspective into behaviour in a real world context.

Card sorting

A technique in user experience design in which a group of subject experts or users are directed to organise and categorise site information in a way that make sense to them. This helps to understand users' expectations and understanding in order to improve the structure of the website.

Live site

A term that refers to your website once it is published on the World Wide Web and available for users.

Gorilla testing

A testing technique in which testers and sometimes developers test a particular software very thoroughly.

Customer experience score

Measures the customer satisfaction and indicates varying levels of good/bad experiences from a number of customers.

User interface (UI)

A user interface, also called a "UI" or simply an "interface," is what the user can see) interact with and control for a software application or hardware device. A good user interface provides a user-friendly experience, allowing the user to interact with the software or hardware in a natural and intuitive way. Nearly all software programs have a graphical user interface or GUI This means the program includes graphical controls, which the user can select, for example, menu bar and buttons.

Wireframe

A visual guide to simply show what an app or web page will look like. It suggests the structure of a page, without including all the details about how the final desıgn will look or function. A wireframe is made up of simple lines and boxes and can map the interactions on a page and where each section links to.

Search engine

A web-based tool that allows users to find information on the internet. Popular examples of search engines are Google, Yahoo! and MSN Search. These work by searching databases and internet sites for the keywords specified by the user.

A/B testing

A/B testing (also known as split testing or bucket testing) is a method of comparing two versions of a webpage or app (A and B) against each other to determine which one performs better. You split your web traffic between these two versions and measure their performance using relevant metrics, for example, conversion rate and sales.

Alternate paths

An alternate path is a scenario for a user journey which highlights optional outcomes for the user. An alternate path will add variations to the default 'happy path' scenario, where a user follows the quickest, easiest and error free steps in the user journey.

App

An app (short for application) is a software program that is designed to perform a specific function above or on top of what is built-in on a device. Different types of apps include web apps (for desktops/laptops) and mobile apps (which can be downloaded onto a mobile device). These enable a user to perform additional tasks on their smartphone/computer.

Analytics

Analytics is the study of data to understand the effects of certain decisions or events, to predict how they might turn out in the future and to influence future behaviours. This allows businesses to evaluate and improve their performance. For example, if a business holds a promotional sale, they can use analytics to understand whether the promotion caused their sales to increase and by how much, and what the effect might be of holding sales for other products.

Real-world testing

Any type of testing when your app or website is actually tested by your end users. For example, diary testing is a form of real world testing as the product is released and the users are able to test as a part of their normal routine.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

CSS are used to format the layout of web pages, creating a uniform look across several pages of a website. They can be used to define aspects such as text style, table size and the alignment of text and images - features that previously could only be defined in a page's HTML (the language used to create webpages).

Information architecture (IA)

Creating a structure for a website or application which allows users to understand where they are and where to find the information that they need. It focuses on organising and labelling content in an effective way to support usability and help users easily find the information they're looking for.

Engagement

Engagement refers to the way that people interact with your content. You can measure this via: recent visits, frequency of visits, time spent on site, last visit, number of repeat visits and average time spent per session.

User testing

Evaluating a product by testing it with a sample group of intended users.

Data

Facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis.

Intuitive

Fasy to use and understand without prior exposure or knowledge. An intuitive mobile app user experience means that the app is Casy to learn, easy to use and works as expected.

Efficient

Functioning in the best possible way with the least waste of time, effort or cost.

Insight

Gaining a clear and deep understanding of an issue or situation through a combination of facts, data and/or analysis of data.

HTML

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is used to create web pages. Each page contains a series of connections to other pages called hyperlinks. Every web page you see on the Internet is written using a version of HTML code.

Feasible

Ifa task or project is feasible then it is capable of being done or carried out.

Bounce

In web analytics, bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to a given website who leave the site after viewing only a single page, without interacting with the page. Users might 'bounce'or leave the site if there are site design or usability issues. Or, if they've found the information they need on that one page and have no need or interest in going to other pages

Interactive design

Interactive design focuses on creating engaging interfaces with well thought out features. Simply, interaction design is a process of connecting the digital world to the human one.

Aesthetic

Our perception of a product or website based on our senses and responses. If an app UI is aesthetically pleasing, it is attractive, well designed and easy to use.

Drop-off rates

Percentage of users who leave the website after the first, second, third page and so on. For example, if a customer is in the process of purchasing a product from your website, but while entering their payment details decides to close the session, the user is considered as having "dropped off".

Post launch feedback

Refers to feedback received from users once vour website or anp has been launched to the general public. After launch you want to make sure that what you set out to do was actually achieved, so feedback helps you measure success and see if any improvements are required.

Continual development

Refers to the process of continually making improvements to an app, website or product to increase the quality of the experience for users.

Front end development technologies

Refers to the programming languages such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript that allow you to create the visual, front end elements of an application or website.

Prototyping tools

Refers to websites or software that allow you to create prototynes of your website or app. For example proto.io and invisionapp.

Responsive design

Responsive design allows you to build a single website that automatically resizes to fit the screen of the device being used. It works by adapting to the size of the screen no matter what device is being used. This is different to adaptive design since you don't need to design the site for the different screen widths. Responsive design is more flexible. It takes less work to build and maintain and is useful for customers to have a consistent experience across all devices without creating a unique mobile experience.

Revenue

Revenue is the total amount of money received by a company for products or services sold during a certain time period. It is calculated by multiplying the price at which products/services are sold by the amount sold. To calculate profit, a business subtracts their costs and expenses from their revenue.

Design tool

See Prototyping Tools

Tangible

Something that is real or factual. It can be capable of being touched or felt.

Empathy

The ability to understand and share the feelings of another. This is an important skill for a UX designer as it allows you to put yourself in the shoes of your target audience.

Invest

The act of committing money, time or expertise to a project or activity, for example, a business or real estate, with the expectation of obtaining a positive result such as financial gain. Although investing is often referred to in relation to gaining a monetary return, this isn't always the case. For example, by taking this course you are investing your time with the aim of improving your digital knowledge.

Market research

The activity of gathering information about consumers' needs and preferences about products or services that they could use or buy. It can help to understand the need for your business, if it will work, who your çompetitors are, and how you might change your product to suit general public needs and likes.

Profit

The amount of money.a company makes once costs, expenses and taxes have been deducted.

Typography

The design (style and appearance) of text, and the way in which the type is laid out on a page to best achieve the desired visual effect and convey the meaning.

Front end

The front end of a device or program is directly accessible and viewable by the users. For example, the front end of a smartphone is what the user sees when they select and interact with their anns |and with the other features of their phone.

Customer experience

The phrase used to describe the total of all interactions a customer has with a business. This is based on online and offline experiences and thoughts about the business.

Conversion

The point at which an audience that receives marketing messaging completes a desired action. For example, a website conversion could be a measure of the number of visitors that make a purchase on your website.

User centred design (UCD)

The process of designing a tool, such as the interface of a website or app, from the perspective of how it will be understood and used by a user. It addresses the whole user experience, puts the user at the heart of the design and development process and iterates throughout the process.

Fidelity

The quality with which something is copied or reproduced, For example, wireframes should be low fidelity since they are intended to be simplified illustrations of the end product. On the other hand, a high fidelity prototype will be very similar to the final product.

Task-based Testing

This testing technique allows you to observe how your app or website is used by your target audience in order to identify where further improvements to the user experience can be made. It involves providing a scenario or set of tasks for users to complete, recording how easily they are accomplished and capturing any problems or confusion that user experience.

Iterate (or iterative)

To iterate is the act of repeating a process with the aim of approaching a desired goal, target or result. Each repetition of the process is called an "iteration", and the results of one iteration are used as the starting point for the next one.

Refine

To makeminor changes to improve or clarify something.

User experience (UX)

User experience refers to the experience of a person in using a product or system. The ease and pleasure of the experience and its ability to meet the user's needs will change the user satisfaction and user experience.

Interactive prototype

Working models/simulations of websites or applications, built for testing functionality before further design and development work is undertaken. This can be done using tools such as Axure and InVision

Digital

You will hear the word 'digital' used a lot in this course. Digital is the adjective used to describe how we are changing the way we operate socially and professionally to reflect emerging technologies and increasing connectivity to the people and objects around us. Digital enables us to transmit and store data or information and apply this information and technology to improve human performance and better tackle our tasks. Digital has many aspects, and this course gives you an introduction to some of its key areas such as Social Media, Digital Marketing, Mobility, Analytics and User Experience.