User Research

A field of study that aims to understand the user experience of a product or service. Conducting UX research includes interviewing, observing, and surveying users. Understanding the user experience is important because it helps designers understand how to design a better product that will be more appealing and usable for people.

More terms you might want to know

Hamburger Menu

A well-known UI element in computer applications. It's an expandable menu of context-specific commands typically launched from the application's main menu.

Display Typface

Typefaces that are used across large bodies of text like headlines. Text typefaces are generally more varied than body-text typefaces.

Gamification

The process of adding game-like qualities to an experience like a website or application. To ensure that these activities are engaging enough for the users, it often includes gradual rewards such as levels and badges systems, which can further encourage engagement with the app.

Fishbone Diagram

Also known as an Ishikawa diagram, is a widely used technique in project management. The diagram provides a means of evaluating the cause-and-effect relationship between the various activities necessary for completing a project by visualising all activities in the project as bones that interconnect on an anterior and posterior spine, with causality flowing from one to another.

Descenders

The portion of a letter such as y, p, q or j that hangs below the baseline of the text.

Mock-up

A non-functional first draft of a design.

Type Size

The height of a font, measured in points or pixels.

Baseline

An imaginary line on which most letters "sit". As such, it equals the height of an em square. The expected result of a baseline is to reference the height with which text is aligned. The alignment ranges from ascenders, which are the upper strokes in b, d, and h, down to descenders like j or y.

System Font

A type of font that comes pre-installed in an operating system.

ID

A selector that can be applied to any HTML element. ID should be used when designing for a single instance, such as using the id="main" attribute on an <h1> tag.

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