Glossary of usability terms and definitions

Usability and human factors researchers use a lot of terms with meanings that aren't obvious to members of other professions. In addition, many researchers within the field of usability will use the same term to mean slightly different things. To avoid adding to this confusion, we are creating a glossary of terms which customers often ask about. The links to the right lead to pages with the definitions which we have in mind when we use each of these terms. We have attempted to adhere to industry-standard definitions wherever possible.

If you have questions about a term not on this list, please send e-mail to info@ergolabs.com.

between-subjects design
data and measurement
discount usability engineering
focus group
heuristic evaluation
information architecture
iterative testing
Kansei engineering
mental modeling
participatory design
product
representative task
representative user
task analysis
usability tests
user interface specifications
within-subjects design
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