Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
19 results found in design theory.
- Anthropomorphism (Humanization, Anthropomorphization)
- The attribution of human characteristics, emotions, intentions, or behaviors to non-human entities such as technology, animals, or objects. In assistive technology and conversational AI design, anthro…
- Boundary Object
- A concept introduced by Star and Griesemer (1989) for artefacts, documents, or concepts that are flexible enough to be used across different communities of practice while retaining a recognisable iden…
- Causal Listening
- A mode of listening, identified by composer and theorist Pierre Schaeffer, in which the listener focuses on identifying the source or cause of a sound — for example, hearing crumpling paper and recogn…
- Communicational Accessibility (Communicative Accessibility)
- An approach to accessible design that goes beyond providing access to raw content (content accessibility) to preserving the designer's intended communicative strategy across all modalities and for all…
- Critical Technical Practice (CTP)
- A research stance, articulated by Philip Agre in 1997, in which technologists reflect critically on the assumptions built into their own systems while continuing to build. Critical technical practice …
- Design Fiction (Speculative Fiction, Diegetic Prototype)
- A design research practice that creates fictional but plausible artifacts, scenarios, or narratives set in imagined futures to provoke discussion, surface assumptions, and explore the social and ethic…
- Design Justice
- A framework that centers the perspectives of people who are most impacted by design decisions, ensuring that design processes, practices, and outcomes distribute benefits and burdens equitably. Coined…
- Distributed Cognition (DCog)
- A theoretical framework developed by Edwin Hutchins that views cognitive processes as distributed across individuals, artifacts, and the environment rather than confined to a single mind. In accessibi…
- Editorial Enunciation (Visual Enunciation)
- A semiotic concept describing how the visual layout and organisation of an interface communicates meaning beyond the content it contains. Editorial enunciation encompasses the spatial arrangement, siz…
- Emotional Design
- A framework developed by Don Norman describing how people evaluate and form attachments to products through three cognitive levels: visceral (immediate sensory and aesthetic responses), behavioral (fu…
- Gulf of Execution
- A concept from Don Norman's theory of action describing the gap between a user's intention and the actions available to achieve that goal through an interface. When the gulf of execution is large, use…
- Implicit User (Model User, Implied User)
- A concept from semiotic engineering describing the hypothetical user that a designer envisions when creating an interface — encompassing assumptions about the user's behaviour, experience, competence,…
- Semantic Listening
- A mode of listening, identified by composer and theorist Pierre Schaeffer, in which the listener focuses on decoding a coded audio signal to arrive at its intended message — for example, understanding…
- Semiotic Engineering (Semiotics of HCI)
- A theoretical framework developed by Clarisse Siqueira de Souza that views human-computer interaction as a form of designer-to-user communication mediated by the interface. In this model, the interfac…
- Slow Design
- Slow design is a design philosophy that emphasizes thoughtful, reflective, and sustained engagement over efficiency and speed. Inspired by the slow food movement, it values deeper contemplation, longe…
- Sociotechnical Identity
- The aspect of personal identity that is constructed and expressed through the technologies a person uses. In assistive technology research, sociotechnical identity refers to how AT serves as a vehicle…
- Speculative Design (Design Fiction, Critical Design)
- A design approach that uses conceptual proposals and provocative artifacts to explore possible futures, challenge assumptions, and stimulate debate rather than solve immediate practical problems. In a…
- Tactile Semiotics
- The study and theory of how meaning is communicated through touch, drawing on broader semiotic principles that every media channel has rules or encodings for conveying meaning. Tactile semiotics exami…
- Wicked Problem
- A problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. Wicked problems resist traditional problem-sol…