| Please note that many of the job titles and descriptions below represent actual positions and are therefore subjective. Standardized job titles and descriptions for website development remain elusive. |
| A |
| Affordance In the context of human-machine interaction, those action possibilities that are readily perceivable by a user. |
| B |
| Bounce Rate The percentage of unique visitors who leave, or "bounce away," from a website after visiting only one page. The formula for bounce rate is: bounce rate equals total number of unique visitors viewing one page divided by total number of unique visitors. |
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C |
| Client Experience User Interface Designer Translates customer and business requirements and use cases into customer-centric online experiences. Works with marketing, business stakeholders, and Web developers. These Web professionals conduct and analyze client research; produce site maps, wireframes, and page layouts; perform usability testing; provide guidance to content managers; and support user-acceptance testing. |
| Content Audit A qualitative summary of what kinds of content exist on a website. Shows how the pages are organized, reflects the content voice and tone, and uncovers the subject matter. To create a content audit, a content strategist reviews of a variety of pages on the website. Also called a qualitative content audit. |
| Content Development The process of researching, writing, gathering, organizing, editing, and publishing information on websites. The style and tone of the content is nearly as important as the content itself. Content developers may also be information architects, user experience experts, and search engine optimization specialists. |
| Content Inventory A quantitative investigation of how much content exists on a website. Involves identifying specific page titles, URLs, and META data. Tools can be used to automate content inventories. Can turn into an ongoing process. Also called a quantitative content audit. |
| Content Strategist A Web professional who is responsible for overseeing the successful identification and fulfillment of a Web-related content requirements throughout the project life cycle. Works closely with information architects, marketing, creative, technology, and business strategy. |
| Content Strategy The practice of planning for content creation, delivery, and governance. It defines the entire content development process for a website development project. Content strategy can include plans for editorial strategy, search engine optimization, and Web production. |
| Contextual Inquiry See Field Study. |
| Control On a website or application interface, a component with which a user can interact. Controls create events that tell the website or application how to respond. Buttons, list boxes, and text boxes are examples of controls. |
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F |
| Field Study A type of qualitative research in which the researcher observes and questions users one-on-one in their environments. The researcher can watch users' behaviors and find out about goals and attitudes. Also called contextual inquiry. |
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I |
| Information Architect A Web professional who usually works early on in the Web development process with marketing, business stakeholders, and Web developers to determine optimal navigation, user flows, internal search criteria, and placement of components. Typically an information architect recommends usability activities but does not conduct them. The information architect's quintessential deliverables are wireframes. See also User Experience Architect, User Experience Designer. |
| Information Architecture The structural design of the information space to facilitate intuitive access to content. In other words, the craft of organizing features, internal search, and content so users can find what they need. |
| Interaction Design In Web development, interaction design (IxD) is the craft of helping users actually do what they need to do to accomplish their goals. Interaction design aims to minimize the learning curve and to increase accuracy and efficiency of a task without diminishing usefulness. Often relates specifically to website applications. |
| Interaction Designer A web professional who is responsible for the the behavior of Web applications. |
| Interactive Design The design of an interface that allows multiple actions or types or actions, such as a website interface. |
| Interactive Designer A Web professional whose owns the visual design of a Web interface. These designers have backgrounds in graphic or industrial design but also knowledge of user-interface design, human factors, user-centered design, web-industry standards and trends, and platform standards. |
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J |
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Jargon Language used by people who work in a particular area or who have a common interest. Much like slang, jargon develops as a kind of short-hand to express ideas that are frequently discussed between members of the group. Buzzwords and acronyms characterize jargon. Because jargon can interfere with user understanding, user experience professionals consider it to be undesirable on websites. |
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O |
| Online Experience Strategist Serves as steward for the online and email customer experience, focusing on content, user flows, and messaging; editorial, voice, and brand standards; and content and creative strategies. Acts as liaison between development and marketing teams; manages vendor relationships. |
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P |
| Persona A realistic character sketch representing one segment of a website's targeted audience. Personas have fictional personal names (John the Job Jockey, for example) but tell research-based stories (John applies for many classes of jobs on a job website). Personas & Website Feature Design » |
| Process Flow A diagram that shows step-by-step progression through a procedure or system using connecting lines and a set of conventional symbols. Process Flow Symbols » |
| Profile As part of a persona, a narrative profile summarizes key differentiators and attributes, while telling the story of a person and how he or she interacts (or wants to interact) with a business and its website. |
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Q |
| Qualitative Research The process of discovering insights with a small sample size. Because they involve interacting with a small number of users and frequently reveal unexpected issues, user interviews and usability testing fall into this category. Qualitative research tells why something is happening; for example, the bounce rate off the home page is high because people do not understand the website navigation. |
| Quantitative Research The process of testing or proving something with a large sample size. Because they involve large numbers of data points, surveys and website traffic analysis fall into this category. Quantitative research tells what is happening; for example, the bounce rate off the home page is 67 percent. Quantitative research can help you test a hypothesis uncovered by qualitative research. |
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S |
| Scenario An idealistic story of a person's interaction with a website. A scenario is idealistic in the sense that it portrays the interaction as obstacle-free. Although scenarios can be employed for other user experience purposes, they are most frequently used to detect interface issues during usability testing. |
| Search Engine Optimization (SEO) The process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a website or a web page (such as a blog) from search engines via "natural" or unpaid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results, as opposed to search engine marketing (SEM), which deals with paid inclusion. |
| Site Map An at-a-glance view of an entire website or portion or a website that shows (with rectangles, lines, and other shapes) the hierarchy of website pages. Does not reflect navigation or hyperlinking strategy; instead, focuses on user flows through the website. Site map example » |
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T |
| Task Analysis From the user's perspective, the step-by-step analysis of how a task is accomplished. The analysis drills down to identify the smallest actions. May or may not include a detailed description of both manual and mental activities, task and element durations, task frequency, task allocation, task complexity, environmental conditions, necessary clothing and equipment, and any other unique factors involved in or required for one or more people to perform a given task. |
| Taxonomy The practice and science of classification. The word is also used as a count noun: a taxonomy is a particular classification ("the taxonomy of ..."), arranged in a hierarchical structure. Typically this is organized by types and subtypes, or parent-child relationships. In such an inheritance relationship, the child has the same properties, behaviors, and constraints as the parent plus one or more additional properties, behaviors, or constraints. For example, car is a subtype of vehicle. So any car is also a vehicle, but not every vehicle is a car. |
| Tone Relative to content, not only what is written, but also how it is written. For example, tone can be formal or informal, authoritative and objective or approachable and friendly. |
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U |
| Usability Studies the elegance and clarity with which the interaction with a computer program or a website is designed.
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| Usability Testing A type of qualitative research in which several users follow a predefined script, or scenario, to perform tasks while the researcher observes and does not solve problems. Usability testing reveals qualitative insights into people's behaviors. It is used to discover issues with a website interface and to explain quantitative research. For example, usability testing might reveal the reason for a high bounce rate off the home page. |
| Usage Scenario Describes a real-world example of how one or more people or organizations interact with a system. Usage scenarios describe the steps, events, and/or actions that occur during the interaction. They can be very detailed, indicating exactly how someone works with the user interface, or reasonably high-level, describing the critical business actions but not indicating how they are performed. |
| Use Case A description of a website's or web application's behavior as it responds to a request that originates from outside of that system. In other words, a use case describes "who" can do "what" with the system in question. May or may not contain preconditions, main success scenario, alternate scenarios, error conditions and resolutions, post-conditions, assumptions, and open issues. |
| User Experience A person's perceptions and responses that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service. |
| User Experience Architect A Web professional who functions not only as an information architect but also as a user researcher, usability expert, and front-end developer. See also Client Experience User Interface Designer. |
| User Experience Designer A Web professional whose role is more or less synonymous with that of a user experience architect. |
| User Flow The path a user follows through a website interface to accomplish a goal or complete a task. See also Process Flow. |
| User Interview A type of qualitative research in which researchers talk one-on-one with a number of users. User interviews reveal insights into people's goals and attitudes. Surveys are useful for testing the findings of user interviews. |
| W |
| Website Strategy The sum of decisions a team makes about where it should apply its resources (such as people and money) to maximize the business success of the website. Also, in website design, the decisions about page real estate and number of clicks. A designer or architect cannot, for example, put too many links and images on one page, and there is rarely enough time and money to design and build every feature users desire. |
| Wireframe A drawing of a website page or class of pages that shows (with rectangles, lines, and other shapes, usually including controls) the elements and navigation necessary for the page. Does not show graphic design or actual text; the wireframing stage precedes the visual design and content development phases of website development. Wireframe example » |
