For designers & developers
The ultimate UX glossary.
173 terms, explained in plain language, with where each one comes from and what it looks like in practice. Free to use, free to link to. If a term is missing, tell me and I'll add it.
A
- A/B testing Randomly splitting live traffic between two versions to measure which performs better on a chosen metric.
- Above the fold / Below the fold The part of a page visible before any scrolling, and everything that needs scrolling to reach.
- Accessibility Designing so that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate and use a product.
- Adaptive design Serving one of several fixed layouts based on the detected device, rather than one layout that flexes.
- Affinity diagram Grouping individual research observations by similarity until the themes emerge from the data.
- Affordance What an object or control offers the user, and how much of that is visible from looking at it.
- Agile Building software in short cycles that deliver working increments, rather than specifying everything up front.
- Agile UX Practising user-centred design inside Agile delivery, usually by running research and design slightly ahead of build.
- Analytics report A summary of how people actually behave in a live product: the paths they take, what they engage with and where they drop off.
- Android Google's mobile operating system, and the platform conventions that come with designing for it.
- Antipersona A profile of someone whose use of the product would harm users or the business, written so the team designs against misuse.
- API The defined way one piece of software talks to another, and a real constraint on what an interface can show.
- Archetype A stripped-down user type that captures goals and behaviours without the name, photo and invented backstory of a full persona.
- Asset map A chronological overview of every screen and element a person meets across channels in a workflow, used to check consistency.
- Atomic design A way of structuring a component library in five levels, from the smallest elements up to full pages.
- Avatar A small image or initials standing in for a person, used to identify who did what.
B
- Backlog The ordered list of everything a team might build next, with the most important work at the top.
- Beacon A small Bluetooth transmitter that lets an app detect roughly where a device is indoors.
- Beta testing Releasing a near-finished product to a limited real audience to find what internal testing missed.
- Brainstorming Generating many ideas before judging any of them, usually with a group.
- Brand identity The visible and verbal system that makes an organisation recognisable and consistent.
- Breadcrumb A trail showing where the current page sits in the site hierarchy, with each ancestor clickable.
- Breakpoint A viewport width at which a layout changes, usually because the current arrangement stops working.
- Bug Software behaving differently from how it was specified to behave.
C
- Call to action The control that asks the user to take the next step, and the words on it.
- Card sorting Asking users to group and label content so the structure reflects their model rather than the org chart.
- Chatbot A conversational interface answering questions or performing tasks through dialogue.
- Chronological map An umbrella term for diagrams that lay out an experience over time, such as experience maps, journey maps and service blueprints.
- Clickstream The recorded sequence of pages and actions a user moves through, in order.
- Cognitive load The mental effort a task demands, and the fact that working memory has a hard limit.
- Cognitive map A free-form drawing of how a person or group understands a process or concept, made to reveal their mental model.
- Commit A saved, described snapshot of changes in version control, and the unit teams review and revert.
- Concept map A graph of concepts as nodes joined by labelled, directed links, so that each connection reads as a short sentence.
- Content audit A quality review of the items in a content inventory, used to decide what to keep, update, merge or remove.
- Content inventory A catalogue of the digital content you already have, with a row of attributes for each page or asset.
- Contextual inquiry Watching someone do their real work in their real environment, and asking about it as they go.
- Contrast ratio The measured difference in relative luminance between two colours, and the basis of WCAG text requirements.
- Conversion rate The proportion of people who complete a defined action out of those who could have.
- CSD matrix A three-column sort of what the team is certain of, supposes and doubts, used to decide what to research.
- CSS The language that controls how HTML is presented: layout, colour, type, spacing and motion.
- Customer experience The whole relationship a person has with an organisation, of which the product is one part.
D
- Dark pattern An interface deliberately designed to trick users into decisions they did not intend to make.
- Dashboard A single screen of data visuals that gives quick, actionable information at a glance.
- Design debt The accumulated cost of design shortcuts: inconsistencies and one-off patterns that make every future change harder.
- Design sprint A time-boxed process, classically five days, from problem to tested prototype.
- Design system The components, tokens, patterns and rules a product is assembled from, kept in sync between design and code.
- Design thinking A problem-solving approach that starts from user needs, works through prototypes, and iterates.
- Design token A named design decision stored as data, so one value drives both the design tool and the code.
- Diary study Asking participants to record their own experiences over days or weeks, capturing what a single session cannot.
- Double Diamond A design process model with four phases: discover, define, develop, deliver, alternating divergent and convergent thinking.
E
- Ecosystem map A visual of the people, organisations, products and services involved in an experience, and how they connect to each other.
- Empathy map A collaborative four-quadrant visual of what one type of user says, thinks, does and feels, used to build shared understanding.
- Empty state What a screen shows when there is nothing to show, which is often the user's first impression.
- End user The person who actually uses the product, who is often not the person who bought it.
- Error message What the system says when something has gone wrong, and one of the cheapest things to fix well.
- Ethnographic research Extended observation of people in their own environment, to understand behaviour in its real context.
- Experience map An end-to-end view of a generic person's path toward a goal, independent of any one business or product.
- Eye tracking Measuring where people look and for how long, usually visualised as heat maps or gaze paths.
F
- Feasibility, desirability and viability scorecard A prioritisation sheet that scores each idea against three lenses and ranks by the total.
- Feedback The system telling the user that something registered, what is happening, and what the result was.
- Field roadmap A roadmap of every future problem UX could own across the organisation, whether or not the current team can take it on.
- Fitts's Law The time to hit a target depends on its distance and its size: near and large is fast, far and small is slow.
- Flat design A visual style stripping away shadows, gradients and texture in favour of solid colour and clear type.
- Flowchart A diagram of a process as steps and decisions, used to make branching logic reviewable.
G
H
- Heat map A visualisation of where attention, clicks or scrolling concentrate on a page.
- Heuristic evaluation Experts reviewing an interface against established usability principles to find problems without recruiting users.
- Hick's Law Decision time grows with the number of choices, logarithmically rather than linearly.
- Hierarchical task analysis diagram A tree that breaks a user goal into tasks and subtasks, with plans that say in what order or conditions they happen.
- Human Interface Guidelines Apple's platform design documentation, defining the conventions expected of apps on its operating systems.
- Human-centred design Designing from the needs of the people who will use the thing, formalised internationally in ISO 9241-210.
- Human-computer interaction The academic field studying how people use computing systems, and the source of most of UX's evidence base.
- Human-machine interface The controls and displays through which a person operates a machine, especially where mistakes are physical.
I
- Impact-effort matrix A two-by-two that plots ideas by the value they deliver against the work they cost, to show where to start.
- Inclusive design Designing for the full range of human diversity, so fewer people are excluded in the first place.
- Information architecture How content is organised, labelled and navigated, so people can find what they came for.
- Information scent How strongly a link or label signals that following it leads toward what the user wants.
- Interaction design Designing how a product behaves: what it does in response to input, over time, in every state.
- Interactive UX map A high-fidelity map built in UI software, with clickable layers that link each part of an experience back to the research behind it.
- Interview guide The set of questions and prompts that keeps a structured interview focused without turning it into a script.
- iOS Apple's mobile operating system, and the platform conventions expected by everyone using an iPhone.
- Iterative design Designing in repeated cycles of build, test and refine, rather than attempting to get it right once.
J
K
L
M
- Material Design Google's design system, defining components, motion, elevation and theming across its platforms.
- Mental model The user's internal understanding of how a system works, which is usually simpler and often wrong.
- Microcopy The small text that does the heavy lifting: labels, hints, errors, empty states, button text.
- Miller's Law Working memory holds about seven items, plus or minus two, and the figure is routinely misapplied.
- Mind map A tree with one central topic and branching subtopics, used to generate and organise ideas quickly.
- Mobile-first design Designing the smallest screen first, then adding for larger ones, so priorities get decided rather than inherited.
- Mockup A high-fidelity static representation of a design, showing what it looks like but not how it behaves.
- Mood board A collage of images, textures, colours or words that conveys a feeling or direction at a glance.
- MoSCoW analysis A method that sorts requirements into Must, Should, Could and Will not have, so scope is agreed before work starts.
- Motion design Using movement to show what changed, where something came from, and whether the system heard you.
- MVP The smallest version of a product that produces validated learning about whether the idea works.
N
O
P
- Paper prototype Quick, cheap paper sketches of screens or flows, tested with users by swapping sheets by hand.
- Persona A research-based description of a user type, used to keep design decisions anchored to real people.
- Pixel The smallest addressable unit of a display, and a unit whose meaning in design has drifted from the hardware.
- Process map A zoomed-in view of one specific process, drawn as a flowchart, swimlane diagram or task-analysis diagram.
- Product roadmap A strategic plan of the problems a product will tackle over time, spanning design, engineering and the business.
- Progressive disclosure Showing what is needed now and deferring the rest, so complexity is available without being constant.
- Promptframe A newer deliverable that sets content goals and requirements for the generative-AI prompts behind each part of a wireframe.
- Proto persona A persona built from the team's existing assumptions rather than new research, meant to be tested and corrected later.
- Prototype A working approximation built to answer a question, at the lowest fidelity that answers it.
- Prototype specification Notes beside a prototype recording sizes, spacing, click effects and element states so developers can build it as designed.
Q
R
- RACI matrix A grid showing who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted or Informed for each deliverable or phase of a project.
- Relationship map A diagram of key teams, people and resources showing how they can help each other and who manages whom.
- Research plan A short document that states what a study will find out, how, with whom, when, and what will be done with the results.
- Research repository A shared, searchable collection of research material that keeps findings reusable across teams and over time.
- Research synthesis Turning raw research data into themes and decisions, which is where most of the value is created or lost.
- Responsive design One fluid layout that reflows to fit any viewport, rather than separate layouts per device.
- RICE method A prioritisation score from reach, impact, confidence and effort, devised at Intercom to rank product ideas.
S
- Scenario map A brainstorming artefact showing how different persona segments might approach the same activity with the product.
- Screen reader Software that converts interface content to speech or braille, navigated largely by keyboard.
- Screener A short questionnaire that selects research participants who fit the target audience and screens out poor fits.
- Service blueprint A diagram linking customer actions, frontstage and backstage work, and supporting systems along a journey, separated by lines of visibility.
- Service design Designing the whole service including the parts the customer never sees, so the visible parts can work.
- Signifier The perceivable cue that tells a user an action is possible, as distinct from the possibility itself.
- Site map A diagram of a site's structure, and separately an XML file listing its pages for search engines.
- Sketch test Hand a deliverable to a colleague, ask them to sketch or summarise it back, and watch where they get confused.
- Sketching Drawing ideas quickly and roughly, to think through many options before committing to any.
- Skeuomorphism Interface design that imitates physical objects, using familiar appearance to signal function.
- Skill map A team activity that maps the strengths and gaps of UX staff, to take stock of the team's composition and plan its growth.
- Specialty roadmap A slice of the field roadmap limited to one UX specialty, such as user research or accessibility.
- Sprint A fixed, short period in which an Agile team completes an agreed set of work.
- Stakeholder Anyone with an interest in the outcome, which usually includes people who will never use the product.
- Stakeholder persona A fictional character representing a typical member of a stakeholder group inside or around the business, such as an approver, buyer or support agent.
- Stakeholder profile A document that organises what is known about one stakeholder, their goals, influence and concerns, so the team can engage them deliberately.
- State diagram A map of every state something can be in and every permitted transition between them.
- Statistical persona A persona derived from analysing survey data from a large sample, usually after qualitative work has suggested what to measure.
- Storyboard A sequence of drawings showing a person's experience over time, including everything around the screen.
- Style guide Documentation of how a brand or product should look and sound, without the working components.
- Survey A set of questions capturing what people say they think, feel or have done, at a scale interviews cannot reach.
T
- Technical debt The future cost of choosing a quick implementation now instead of a sound one.
- Think-aloud protocol Asking participants to verbalise their thoughts while working, so reasoning becomes observable.
- Touch target The area that responds to a tap, which needs to be larger than the icon inside it.
- Touchpoint Any point of contact between a person and an organisation, digital or not.
- Tree testing Testing whether people can find things in a proposed structure, with no visual design present.
- Typography The arrangement of type: face, size, spacing and hierarchy. On most screens it is the majority of the design.
U
- Usability How effectively, efficiently and satisfactorily specified users achieve specified goals in a specified context.
- Usability report A summary of what a usability test found, what it means and what to do next, with problems ordered by severity.
- Usability testing Watching representative users attempt real tasks, to find where a design fails before it ships.
- User experience A person's whole response to using a product, including before and after, of which usability is one part.
- User flow The path a person takes through a product to complete a goal, mapped step by step.
- User interface The surface through which a person operates a system: what they see, hear and manipulate.
- User journey map A visualisation of a person's experience over time across every touchpoint, including what they feel and where it breaks.
- User research Systematically learning about the people who will use a product, so decisions rest on evidence rather than assumption.
- User scenario A short narrative of a specific person achieving a specific goal in a specific situation.
- User story A short statement of a need in the form: as a role, I want something, so that some benefit.
- User-centred design An iterative process that grounds design in real users, tasks and environments, defined in ISO 9241-210.
- User-story map A two-dimensional map of user steps across the top with agile stories beneath, used to see the whole product and slice it into releases.
- UX roadmap A living plan that sets out and prioritises the UX team's future work.
- UX story A narrative account, often in the first person, of how an experience unfolds over time for someone, different from an agile user story.
V
W
- Waterfall A sequential process where each phase completes before the next begins, with design finished before build.
- WCAG The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines: the testable standard nearly every accessibility law refers to.
- White space The empty area around and between elements, which does the grouping and pacing work in a layout.
- Whiteboard challenge A design interview exercise: solve an unfamiliar problem live, thinking out loud, in 30 to 60 minutes.
- Wireflow Wireframes laid out with flowchart-style arrows to show how screens connect and what triggers each move.
- Wireframe A deliberately plain layout showing structure, hierarchy and content priority, with the visual design left out.
X
Z
Knowing the words is the easy part.
If you'd rather have someone apply them to your product, that's what I do.