UX Terminology

Wireframe

Wireframes are a low-fidelity representation, a blueprint of a design layout and content. You can use just a pen and paper to create wireframes, or any drawing or UI design tool. Wireframes are made in the early development phase.

White space

White or negative space refers to the blank space on a page, the empty space between layouts, lines in paragraphs, between multiple design elements.

Prototype

A prototype is a preliminary model of a product used for testing before launch. You’ll often build different fidelity prototypes, low-level prototypes and high-level prototypes.

User Journey (Maps)

User Journey Maps help us understand the process a user goes through in order to accomplish a goal, the different stages the users goes through during each stage when they are interacting with a service, design, or product.

User-Centered Design

User-centered design is an iterative design process in which designers focus on the users and their needs in each phase of the design process. Design is based on understanding of users, tasks, and environments.

Persona

This is frequently used in UX design as well. A persona is a user profile that you develop as a representation of the target audience so that you are designing for a specific audience instead of a generic one.

Pain Points

Pain points are the problems users face at different stages when using a service, product, design.

MVP

An MVP, or Minimum Viable Product, refers to the essential set of features we can launch a product with to get the ball rolling. Products are often launched as MVPs to release fast and gather valuable user feedback.

Usability Test

Usability tests are done by researchers, by observing users interacting with a design/product to learn about problems that users may encounter.

Storyboard

A storyboard is a rough sketch of a scenario, that is a designers' vision of what a design will look like. It usually contains the main event points in how users use and interact with a design, product or service.

Card Sorting

It is a user research method that asks users to arrange information into groups that make sense to them. You use pieces of paper, cards, or an online card sorting tool to do this.

Material Design

Material Design is a design language developed by Google used in Android devices.

Human Interface Guidelines

HIG for short — offers in-depth information and UI resources for all of Apple's platforms, including specific technology areas.

Mental Model

A mental model represents what the user believes to be true about a product’s functionality. It is an explanation of someone's thought process about how something works in the real or digital world. You can learn more about it here.

Conversion Rate

The Conversion Rate of a product or site is the percentage of users who complete a desired action.

Agile

Instead of betting everything on a big launch, an agile team delivers work in small, but consumable, increments. It is based on continuous evaluation so teams can respond to change quickly. This enables teams to deliver value faster, with greater quality.

Accessibility

Accessibility or accessible design is a design process that enables people with disabilities to interact with a product. This means designing for people who are color blind, blind, deaf, and people with cognitive disabilities, among others.

Exercise: What does it mean?

When you hear the next sentence regarding the screen below, "The text has bad contrast.". Which term do you think of? The answer is "Accessibility". You can check the color contrast with the help of this tool provided by Material Design.

Which term will you use to describe the picture below? The right answer is: Storyboard.

What UX term are you thinking of when you see the picture below? The right answer: Wireframes.

Conclusion

Getting familiar with UX terms will make your new career less scary and you will begin to feel "at home" in no time. Don't be afraid to ask questions when you don't understand something, UX'ers are always more than happy to share their knowledge and help out the community.