Business Vocab Flashcards
Product vs Service
The basic definition has traditionally been tangible versus intangible. Products are conventionally considered physical things (books, bags, clothing, and so on), whereas services are intangible (subscriptions, customer support, management). This distinction is rapidly fading but the basis for the difference can be seen below.
Business Objectives
business objective is whatever goal a business wants to achieve. It has everything to do with your client and their stakeholders.
Stakeholders
Stakeholders are individuals who may affect or be affected by any decisions made during a project and can include anyone from the CEO to customer service agents.
Queue Psychology
When Walt Disney opened the Disneyland theme park in 1955, he pioneered much of what is now known as “queue psychology.” Queue psychology focuses on improving the experience of waiting.
background story elements and interactive games are located at strategic points throughout the queue. Rather than seeing frustrated patrons in line, you now find people laughing and having fun, and that’s before the ride even begins.
Disney theme parks follow a set of principles they call “Mickey’s Ten Commandments.” Among them is one that underlines their emphasis on guest empathy. That principle is:
“Wear your Guest’s shoes: Insist that your team members experience your creation just the way Guests do.”
Wayfinding
wayfinding—the orientation and navigation of people (or animals) in a physical space. Though we don’t often think about it, our physical environments provide us with cues as to where we are and where we’re going. An obvious example is a signage on the highways. As we drive, we encounter signs pointing us to exits and on-ramps that ultimately guide us to our intended destination.
Large public spaces such as parks, airports, and sports arenas all employ wayfinding to help us get to where we’re going
As a user experience designer, it’s up to you to analyze how users interact with your system and adjust accordingly to improve the overall user experience.
Customer Experience
Each time we open a bottle or sip coffee from a mug, we’re having an experience with that object. How many times have you found yourself twisting a bottle cap as hard as you could only to find it’s a pop-top? In the end, you’re left with nothing but a sore hand and a bruised ego, but where does the fault lie? With you? Or the bottle designer?
like in digital design, it’s important to iterate and reiterate your products. Consider the following example: years ago, child-proof prescription bottles were introduced in order to protect young children from accidental poisoning and overdose. Soon after, it was discovered that some patients with disabilities or limited dexterity were having difficulty accessing their prescription medication. While the child-proof caps were effective in keeping children out, the new bottles had the unintended effect of keeping some adults out, too.
Graphical User Interface
Modern human-computer interaction was born in 1977 in Xerox’s PARC research center. There, the Xerox team developed resource upon resource for interacting with computers such as laser printing, bitmap images, and the GUI (graphical user interface).
Before the GUI, most computer interaction happened via keyboard. A user would type in a command, and the computer would execute it. This required learning hundreds of commands that were often cryptic and hard to understand, making any sort of interaction with a computer a daunting task. There were no graphical representations of files—just plain old text on a screen. When the GUI arrived on the scene, however, everything changed.
The GUI made it possible to see documents and files on a computer as if they were laid out in front of you on a desktop. In fact, the Xerox Star was the first computer to coin the term “desktop.”
Human-Computer Interaction
Human-computer interaction (HCI) is the science and study of how humans interact with computers and other digital systems
Before the 1980s, you had to be an information technology professional to interact with a computer system. As you’ve learned, however, the GUI and computer mouse changed all that for the better. These advancements turned using a computer into an intuitive experience.
User Centered Design
Apple, he also coined the term user-centered design (UCD), sometimes referred to as human-centered design (HCD). This term was popularized in Norman’s 1986 publication, User Centered System Design: New Perspectives on Human-computer Interaction. See the resources section at the end of this Exercise for more info.
In its most basic form, UCD puts the user at the center of all design decisions by prioritizing user needs and requirements. This approach is beneficial for a number of reasons:
Fogg Behavior Model
Fundamentally, the Fogg Behavior Model states that three components must occur simultaneously to have a tangible effect on behavior: motivation, ability, and prompt (also known in design as a “trigger”). These components can be summarized as a formula:
Behavior = Motivation x Ability x Prompt
A motivated group or individuals
The fundamental ability to complete the action itself
A prompt to engage, remind, prod, or coax a group or individual to complete an action
Internal prompts include loneliness, boredom, hunger—feelings that are universal to the human condition. External prompts typically involve outside factors like the ease of using a mobile app or finding a local restaurant. As designers, we typically focus on external prompts as elements we can build into our products and services, for example:
Text message
Push notification
Sales call
Advertisement
In-application or on-site notifications (i.e., red Facebook notification)
Event scheduled in calendar
Alarm or alert
Contextual notifications based on time or location
Fogg outlines seven strategies to influence behavior:
Reduction: simplifies a task that the user is trying to do.
Tunneling: guides the user through a sequence of activities, step by step.
Tailoring: provides custom information and feedback to the user based on their actions.
Suggestion: gives suggestions to the user at the right moment and in the right context.
Self-monitoring: enables the user to track their own behavior in order to change it and achieve a predetermined outcome.
Surveillance: observes the user overtly to increase a target behavior.
Conditioning: relies on providing reinforcement (or punishment) to the user in order to increase a target behavior.
Friction
“In user experience, friction is defined as interactions that inhibit people from intuitively and painlessly achieving their goals within a digital interface.”
VICTORIA YOUNG
As we see from both Maslow’s hierarchy and the Design Hierarchy of Needs, humans are goal-oriented creatures. Regardless of where in the hierarchy that goal appears, the blocking of a goal results in frustration and anger.
As with any kind of impediment that stands between an individual and their goal, friction in a product, app, or service creates frustration. I
Goal of UX Designer
As a UX designer, your primary goal is to reduce (and ideally, eliminate) any friction within the user interface of a product. You want to make sure the product performs consistently (e.g., the app opens and responds with one click) and is easy to navigate (no hunting and pecking for functions). On top of that, providing additional motivation and value for your users can help garner loyal fans. This is what can elevate your product to the “creativity” stage of the hierarchy. We’ll discuss this further in upcoming Achievements.
Communicate
Prototypes communicate user experience
Communicate the functions of the app
Convey
Mid fidelity prototypes convey form and function of the UI
Streamline
Streamline development and design
