Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
49 results found in User Experience.
- Execution Gap (Gulf of Execution)
- From Don Norman's model of human-computer interaction, the distance between a user's goals and the physical actions required to achieve them using a given system. A system with a wide execution gap fo…
- Expert User (Advanced User, Power User)
- A user who has substantial experience with a system and has internalised its structure, commands, and idioms. Expert users typically prefer direct, efficient interaction — keyboard shortcuts, command-…
- Flow Theory (Flow State, Flow)
- A psychological theory proposed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describing the state of deep immersion and intrinsic enjoyment that occurs when a person is fully engaged in an activity whose challenge leve…
- HHS Usability Guidelines (Research-Based Web Design and Usability Guidelines, Usability.gov Guidelines)
- A comprehensive set of evidence-based web design and usability guidelines published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The guidelines cover areas including homepage design, pag…
- Haptic Experience Model (HX Model, HX)
- A framework proposed by Kim and Schneider for evaluating user experience with haptic technologies along five perceptual-experiential dimensions: autotelics (the pleasantness of the sensation), realism…
- Intergenerational Design (Cross-Generational Design)
- A design approach that considers the needs, preferences, and interaction patterns of users across different age groups and generations. Intergenerational design aims to create products and experiences…
- Link Annotation (Link Augmentation, Link Labelling)
- The practice of adding supplementary information to hyperlinks to help users make informed navigation decisions before clicking. In web accessibility, link annotations may include the accessibility le…
- Link Preview (Link Destination Preview, Link Target Preview)
- Information about the content or nature of a hypertext link's destination page, provided to users before they follow the link. Link previews help users make informed navigation decisions, reducing the…
- Mental Model (Cognitive Model, User Mental Model)
- A user's internal representation of how a system, interface, or environment works, built through experience and interaction. In web accessibility, mental models are critical because screen reader user…
- Narrative Engagement (Story Engagement)
- A multidimensional construct used in media studies and HCI research to capture how deeply a viewer is drawn into a story, including narrative understanding, attentional focus, narrative presence (the …
- Novice User (Beginner User, First-Time User)
- A user who is new to a particular system, task, or interface and has not yet built a mental model of its structure or vocabulary. Novice users typically benefit from menu-driven interfaces, prominent …
- Perceived Accessibility (Subjective Accessibility, Accessibility-in-Use)
- Perceived accessibility refers to the subjective quality by which users experience the accessibility of a website or application, as opposed to its objective compliance with accessibility standards. R…
- Positive Design (Design for Subjective Well-Being)
- A design framework, articulated by Desmet and Pohlmeyer, that explicitly targets human flourishing by attending to three components of subjective well-being: pleasure (positive affect in the moment), …
- Satisficing
- A decision-making strategy where users select the first option that appears "good enough" rather than evaluating all possibilities to find the optimal choice. Coined by Herbert Simon, satisficing is c…
- Sense of Control (Perceived control, Locus of control (task-level))
- A psychological construct describing a user's subjective feeling of agency over what a system does, distinct from objective control measures such as available options or task-completion rates. In acce…
- Situational Trust (Situational Trust in Automation)
- A context-sensitive form of trust in an automated system that varies moment-to-moment based on perceived system performance, environment, and the user's own capacity to intervene. Unlike dispositional…
- Storyboarding (Storyboard)
- A visual narrative technique, adapted from film, in which a sequence of sketched panels depicts how a user will interact with a product, service, or environment over time. Storyboards make abstract sc…
- Technology Abandonment (Device Abandonment, Technology Discontinuance)
- The phenomenon where users stop using a technology or assistive device after initial adoption, often due to poor usability, lack of perceived benefit, inadequate training, or misalignment with actual …
- UEQ-S (User Experience Questionnaire - Short, Short UEQ)
- UEQ-S is an eight-item short version of the User Experience Questionnaire, a standardised survey instrument that measures subjective user experience on a 7-point semantic-differential scale. It captur…
- Usability (Ease of Use)
- Usability is the extent to which a product, system, or service can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use,…