UX Lex
An evolving, interactive glossary of UX research terms.
It's ironic. Those of us who work in UX, user researchers included, aspire to create terrific user experiences. That’s what we do. But what we have done with our own terminology is to create a mess. Eighty UXers from around the globe began to address that problem in September 2019. Here is a sneak peek of that work. More details, and full credits, to come. Sign up here to get weekly terms in your inbox >>
Intercept Recruitment
Interrupting someone digitally (via pop-up window, chat, banner ad, etc) or physically (in-person) to answer a few initial screening questions…
KPI / Key Performance Indicator
KPIs are critical, measurable indicators that, when reviewed together, help organizations, teams and individuals align and gauge performance against business objectives. KPIs can be set …
Likert Scale
The Likert Scale is named after its inventor, psychologist Rensis Likert. It was originally a 5 or 7 point survey scale used to measure variations of attitude, perception…
Mental Model
Each person has their own mental model that represents the way they think, feel and/or behave in regards to everything. They are based on beliefs…
MVP / Minimum Viable Product
The simplest core feature set of any product or service. It’s used in the product development process to represent the initial version of what is being created, to enable testing …
Pain Point
A problem that could be a challenge, hiccup, inconvenience, annoyance, barrier or other issue, occasional or persistent, however big or small, that customers or prospects experience at different points in the product or service journey.
Participant Pool
There are many interpretations of this term. For the purposes of the UX Lex, it refers to the people who have consented to take part in one specific, or a number of research studies, which may or not be on the same topic. It is also a stage in the recruiting selection process.
Sample / Sampling
Sampling has different meanings in quantitative and qualitative research. In quant, it refers to the people or data that is researched or sampled. The sample is a subset of the whole intended to be extrapolated to represent the whole. Characteristics of the subset …
Target Market / aka Target Audience
It is the term for the specific audience (individuals, households, organizations) for whom a product, service or initiative is intended to serve or attract. Target audiences can be large or small in scale, (referred to as the incidence rate depending on …
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