As any other specialist, UX designers have a rich professional vocabulary. Since their work is dynamic, requiring constant communication, approval, and adjustments, saving language means often leaves more time for work rather than discussions. So, naturally, abbreviations and design acronyms are an integral part of designers’ lexicon.
Business owners, developers, SEO specialists, and basically anyone who has interactions with designers need to be well-versed in the terminology to interact efficiently. In the article, we’ve gathered various categories of product design and development abbreviations, from basic terms to more specific and technical ones, to ensure productive communication in your company.
Basic Terms
Misunderstanding may start from the very basics. The terms below lay the foundation of everything a UX/UI designer brings to life. They’re simple but still crucial to understand.
UX
User Experience: Start by making sure you are well aware of what UX is. It is the big picture, the sum of a user’s interactions and feelings towards a product. UX designers polish the product’s usability, ensuring a seamless, intuitive experience that effectively meets user needs.
UI
User Interface: The visual component of a software program or hardware device, which controls how content is shown on the screen and how users engage with programs or websites. The UI design goal is to make user interaction simple, efficient, and enjoyable, fostering effective communication and operational commands.
CX
Customer Experience: CX encapsulates every touchpoint a customer has with your brand, from navigating your website to customer service encounters. It’s all about crafting delightful, frictionless experiences that echo your brand’s values.
BX
Brand Experience: BX is a user’s perception and emotional response towards a brand throughout all aspects of its presence, whether digital or physical. This comprehensive approach weaves a cohesive narrative that resonates with users.
The BX is subjective and always changing since each individual associates a brand with a distinct set of experiences and sentiments. Strengthening brand experience aids in product development by highlighting important aspects that should be prioritized.
SD
Service Design: In comparison to UX/UI design, which places more of an emphasis on the digital touchpoints where a user interacts with a product, service design examines all points of contact that affect the customer experience. It takes into account not just user behaviors but also frontstage actions, backstage actions, and support operations.
API
Application Programming Interface: A set of rules defining the exchange of information between the frontend and backend written in a code. Acting as a bridge, APIs allow different software entities to communicate and interact seamlessly, broadening functionality and fostering innovation without hefty internal alterations.
By tapping into external services and features through APIs, designers can provide users with enriched experiences without needing to build every feature from scratch. Think of integrating maps into a service app or social media sharing capabilities into a blog platform.
RWD
Responsive Web Design: A method of web design that makes sure that online pages display properly on a range of gadgets and window or screen sizes. Its objective is to deliver an ideal experience across all kinds of devices, from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones, with simple reading and navigation and less resizing, panning, and scrolling.
Analytics and Design Methods
This category houses the analytical and strategic methods, beyond website conversion rate audit, that guide designers to create effective, delightful experiences and ensure that every move is backed by reason.
UXR
User Experience Research: UXR lights up the path to products that resonate with users. By digging deep into user behaviors, needs, and motivations, User Experience Research provides invaluable insights to assisting teams in crafting experiences that are not only delightful but also intuitively aligned with user expectations.
MVP
Minimum Viable Product: This is your product’s bare-bones version, designed to validate your business idea with minimal resources. MVP acts as a launchpad, gauging market response and paving the way for future iterations and improvements.
IA
Information Architecture: A strong framework must be in place prior to even starting to develop a website’s looks. This is where information architecture is used. This blueprint forms the foundation, structuring and organizing the information in your system or website. IA aims for clarity, creating straightforward paths and making information accessible and understandable.
IxD
Interaction Design: The IxD crafts the structure and behavior of interactive systems, focusing on creating engaging interfaces that respond to user’s actions and expectations in a fluid, intuitive manner.
UCP
Unified Customer Profile: It is a representation of all the data an organization has about an individual customer, consolidated into one record. UCP provides data about user behaviors, preferences, interactions, and feedback. For UX designers, this translates into a deeper understanding of user needs and pain points.
SWOT
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats: A SWOT analysis is usually among the first steps in a website UX analysis. It is a strategic planning tool that shines a light on internal and external factors affecting a project or business, providing valuable insights to steer decision-making processes.
CJM
Customer Journey Mapping: A simulated customer experience that incorporates goals, feelings, and ideas while they use the product. The map is created from the perspective of the consumer and resembles a graph with key points representing the client’s interactions with the product. CJM depicts the customer’s path to the product, pinpoints issues, and offers suggestions on how to boost conversion and customer loyalty.
PoC
Proof of Concept: A PoC is an early-stage model or experiment, if you like, designed to test the feasibility and potential of an idea, helping you navigate uncertainties and make informed decisions moving forward.
A/B
A/B Testing: A technique for comparing the performance of two different iterations of a design. When doing A/B testing, you should only alter one component or feature of the design. The testing will enable you to determine exactly which feature had an impact on the outcome.
SUS
System Usability Scale: SUS is a 10-question survey providing the information to assess the effectiveness and user-friendliness of your product or service. With questions designed to draw out user responses about the ease of use and accessibility, the SUS allows designers and developers to spot areas of improvement, turning feedback into actionable insights that drive user-centric enhancements.
The questions may vary and are often presented in the form of statements.
Here are some examples:
- I consider the website easy to use;
- I think the system is unnecessarily complex;
- I needed to learn a lot before starting working with the website;
- How confident are you when using the system?
Image Formats
Different image formats cater to different needs. Knowing which one to use is extremely important for both designers and developers.
PNG
Portable Network Graphics: PNGs are a high-quality, lossless image format, ideal for transparent backgrounds and detailed graphics, providing crisp, clear images that make the designs pop.
JPEG
Joint Photographic Experts Group: This format is best for photographs and complex images due to its compression capabilities, balancing quality, and file size to provide visually pleasing images without overwhelming bandwidth.
SVG
Scalable Vector Graphics: As a vector format, SVGs are infinitely scalable without losing quality, making them great for logo designs, icons, and other design elements that need to adapt to various display sizes and resolutions.
GIF
Graphics Interchange Format: GIFs provide simple animations and support transparency, bringing dynamic, engaging visual elements that capture attention and convey information or brand personality in a fun, accessible way.
DPI
Dots Per Inch: It’s not exactly an image format, but needs to be mentioned here. It’s a technique for determining an image’s density in a print or video. The resolution of a picture is determined by how many distinct colored dots can fit into a one-inch space. A picture may not be able to be scaled or printed without losing resolution if it is not of a sufficiently high quality.
Design Elements
This block will describe the short forms of vital design elements, helping craft the visual and functional aspects of a design.
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets: A computer language for creating style sheets that specify how a website should look. It includes details on how fonts, color, spacing, layouts, and visuals should all be used on the website.
HTML
HyperText Markup Language: HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language, is the most widely used computer language for building webpages. It is focused on the website’s structure, defining its content and basic layout, and serving as the canvas upon which CSS and other design elements are painted.
STA
Static Visual Elements: These unchanging design components, like logos and icons, provide consistency and recognizability, serving as visual anchors that ground and define your brand’s digital presence.
AR/VR
Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality: These technologies can improve user experience in different ways. For instance, eCommerce websites can apply them for virtual try-ons. Customers are able to virtually try on anything to see whether it matches them, including eyeglasses, shoes, coats, and any other items, without going to a store.
Design Project Management
This category is all about the behind-the-scenes magic. It ensures projects run smoothly, clients stay happy, and goals are not only met but exceeded.
CRM
Customer Relationship Management: CRM systems assist you in managing and analyzing customer interactions and data, fostering strong, profitable relationships by understanding and anticipating customer needs and preferences.
KPI
Key Performance Indicators: These critical metrics monitor your project’s performance and success, providing tangible targets and benchmarks that guide your team toward its goals and objectives.
QA
Quality Assurance: QA is the safety net, meticulously testing and refining the project to ensure it meets the set quality standards, providing a polished, reliable end product that delights users.
SEO
Search Engine Optimization: It is the basics of enhancing your content’s visibility on search engines, drawing in organic traffic by being the answer to users’ questions, meeting their needs, and providing value. UX/UI designers work with the term, as SEO often involves structuring content in a certain way.
Apart from that, good UX design ensures a site is responsive, catering to users on various devices, which in turn benefits SEO.
PR
Pull Request: The term is connected to software development. Yet, many large organizations maintain a design system that contains reusable design components and guidelines.
These design systems might be stored in repositories similar to code, especially if they contain component libraries or assets for web development. Just like developers, designers might suggest changes or additions to the design system and use PRs to propose and review these changes.
Other
In this section, you’ll find several terms that don’t fit into any category, yet are still essential to know.
AI
Artificial Intelligence: Designers often integrate smart algorithms and technologies into digital interfaces to enhance user experiences. AI can help design interfaces that adapt content and interactions based on a user’s behavior and preferences, crafting chatbots and virtual assistants and developing voice user interfaces (VUI).
SDK
Software Development Kit: An SDK is a collection of software tools and libraries that developers use to produce applications for specific platforms or frameworks. The term is relevant for UX/UI designers, as SDKs often come with design guidelines or UI components tailored for a particular platform.
Designers must ensure that their arrangements align with these guidelines to provide a consistent and native experience. Besides, some SDKs might offer tools or plugins that allow designers to prototype or preview designs within the platform environment.
WAI
Web Accessibility Initiative: The WAI is an effort by the World Wide Web Consortium created to improve web accessibility for individuals with disabilities. The task of UX/UI designers here is to adopt a broader approach where designs cater not only to typical users but also to those who might interact with a website or app differently due to a disability.
Wrapping Up
The dynamic realm of UX design is a rich repository of terms, abbreviations, and acronyms. As the field constantly evolves, it becomes crucial for professionals and stakeholders alike to understand this unique lexicon.
From the foundational terms of UX and UI to intricate design project management concepts, grasping these abbreviations is about ensuring efficient and harmonious interactions within the industry.
Whether you’re a budding designer, a business owner, or someone in a related field, familiarizing yourself with these terms not only enhances collaboration but also empowers you to navigate the digital landscape with confidence and clarity.
