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UX foundations and design systems glossary

47 terms from R08, UX foundations and design systems — 25 defined in the guide itself and 22 more from the field around it. Every term the guide teaches links to the slide that teaches it.

The whole craft glossary

R08 · What to build

UX foundations and design systems

Why do interfaces help or hinder?

Every term below is defined in the words of ux foundations and design systems, guide R08 of craft guides for educational technologists, and opens the guide at the slide where it is taught. 22 of the 47 are the field’s vocabulary rather than the guide’s own: words a reader will meet around this subject, defined here because the guide assumes them. 3 terms are also defined by another guide in the series; where the two differ, both wordings are given. The whole craft glossary holds all of them together.

TermDefinitionReferred to inRead further
A
Aesthetic–usability effect

The tendency of people to judge a better-looking interface as easier to use, whether or not it is.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Tractinsky, N., Katz, A. S., & Ikar, D. (2000). What is beautiful is usable. Interacting with Computers, 13(2), 127–145. doi
  • Lidwell, W., Holden, K., & Butler, J. (2010). Universal principles of design (Rev. and updated ed.). Rockport Publishers.
Affordance

A relationship between the properties of an object and the abilities of the person using it, which determines how it could be used (Norman, 2013).

  • Norman, D. (2013). The design of everyday things (Rev. and expanded ed.). Basic Books. basicbooks.com
  • Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Houghton Mifflin.
  • Norman, D. A. (1999). Affordance, conventions, and design. Interactions, 6(3), 38–43. doi
Alternative text (alt text)

A short written description attached to an image, read aloud by screen readers and shown when the image fails to load.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • World Wide Web Consortium. (2023). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 (W3C Recommendation). w3.org
  • Horton, S., & Quesenbery, W. (2013). A web for everyone: Designing accessible user experiences. Rosenfeld Media.
Assistive technology

Hardware or software that people with disabilities use to operate a computer or read its content, such as screen readers, screen magnifiers, switch devices and voice control.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • World Wide Web Consortium. (2023). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 (W3C Recommendation). w3.org
  • Horton, S., & Quesenbery, W. (2013). A web for everyone: Designing accessible user experiences. Rosenfeld Media.
Atomic design

A mental model of interfaces as built from atoms, molecules, organisms, templates and pages, which treats a screen as both a whole and a set of shared parts (Frost, 2016).

Attention budget

This guide's name for the limited working memory a user has, shared between the task and the interface.

  • Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J. J. G., & Paas, F. (2019). Cognitive architecture and instructional design: 20 years later. Educational Psychology Review, 31(2), 261–292. doi
  • Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning. Cognitive Science, 12(2), 257–285. doi
  • Mayer, R. E. (2024). The past, present, and future of the cognitive theory of multimedia learning. Educational Psychology Review, 36(1), Article 8. doi
B
Breaking change

A release that stops existing uses of a shared part working as before, marked by a new major version number.

  • Preston-Werner, T. (n.d.). Semantic versioning 2.0.0. Retrieved September 17, 2026, from semver.org
  • Government Digital Service. (n.d.-c). Versioning [GOV.UK Frontend documentation]. GitHub. Retrieved September 17, 2026, from github.com
C
Chunking

Grouping separate items into a few meaningful units, as with the blocks of a phone number, so that more can be held in working memory.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63(2), 81–97. doi
  • Cowan, N. (2001). The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24(1), 87–114. doi
Cognitive load

The demand a task places on working memory (Sweller, 1988).

  • Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning. Cognitive Science, 12(2), 257–285. doi
  • Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J. J. G., & Paas, F. G. W. C. (1998). Cognitive architecture and instructional design. Educational Psychology Review, 10(3), 251–296. doi
  • Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J. J. G., & Paas, F. (2019). Cognitive architecture and instructional design: 20 years later. Educational Psychology Review, 31(2), 261–292. doi
Coherence principle

People learn better when extraneous material is excluded rather than included (Mayer, 2024).

  • Mayer, R. E. (2024). The past, present, and future of the cognitive theory of multimedia learning. Educational Psychology Review, 36(1), Article 8. doi
  • Mayer, R. E. (2021). Multimedia learning (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press. doi
  • Sundararajan, N., & Adesope, O. (2020). Keep it coherent: A meta-analysis of the seductive details effect. Educational Psychology Review, 32(3), 707–734. doi
Colour contrast ratio

A measure from 1:1 to 21:1 of the difference in brightness between text and its background. WCAG level AA asks for at least 4.5:1 for normal-sized text.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • World Wide Web Consortium. (2023). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 (W3C Recommendation). w3.org
Component

A reusable interface part, such as a button or text field, with agreed behaviour and code.

Contribution model

The published route by which teams propose, build and add new parts to a design system.

D
Design system

A product that holds an organisation's shared interface decisions, parts, guidance and code, with a team that maintains them.

Design token

A named design decision, such as a colour or spacing value, stored once and used everywhere (Design Tokens Community Group, 2025).

  • Curtis, N. (2016). Tokens in design systems. EightShapes. medium.com
  • Design Tokens Community Group. (2025). Design tokens format module 2025.10 (Final Community Group Report). W3C Community Group. designtokens.org
DesignOps

The orchestration and optimisation of people, processes and craft to increase the value and impact of design at scale (Kaplan, 2019).

  • Kaplan, K. (2019). DesignOps 101. Nielsen Norman Group. nngroup.com
  • Kaplan, K. (2020). DesignOps maturity: Low in most organizations. Nielsen Norman Group. nngroup.com
E
Extraneous load

Load caused by how information is presented, rather than by its complexity (Sweller et al., 2019).

  • Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J. J. G., & Paas, F. G. W. C. (1998). Cognitive architecture and instructional design. Educational Psychology Review, 10(3), 251–296. doi
  • Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J. J. G., & Paas, F. (2019). Cognitive architecture and instructional design: 20 years later. Educational Psychology Review, 31(2), 261–292. doi
  • Mayer, R. E. (2024). The past, present, and future of the cognitive theory of multimedia learning. Educational Psychology Review, 36(1), Article 8. doi
F
Federated model

A way of owning a design system in which a representative, empowered subset of designers and leaders from product teams shape it together, with a central group to document and maintain it (Curtis, 2015).

R14 A model in which the teams closest to data own it, and a central group sets standards they follow.

  • DAMA International. (2017). DAMA-DMBOK: Data management body of knowledge (2nd ed.). Technics Publications. damadmbok.org
  • Curtis, N. (2015). Team models for scaling a design system. EightShapes. medium.com
  • Dehghani, Z. (2022). Data mesh: Delivering data-driven value at scale. O'Reilly Media.
Fitts's law

The time to reach a target depends on its size and distance, so a large, clearly labelled primary action is easier to hit (Fitts, 1954).

  • Fitts, P. M. (1954). The information capacity of the human motor system in controlling the amplitude of movement. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 47(6), 381–391. doi
  • Budiu, R. (2022). Fitts's law and its applications in UX. Nielsen Norman Group. nngroup.com
G
Gestalt principles

Rules describing how people see separate visual elements as groups, such as proximity, similarity and closure. Designers use them to show which parts of a screen belong together.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Wertheimer, M. (1923). Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt. II. Psychologische Forschung, 4(1), 301–350. doi
  • Johnson, J. (2020). Designing with the mind in mind: Simple guide to understanding user interface design guidelines (3rd ed.). Morgan Kaufmann. doi
Gulfs of execution and evaluation

The gap between what a user wants to do and what the system lets them do, and the gap between the system's state and the user's ability to see and interpret it.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Norman, D. (2013). The design of everyday things (Rev. and expanded ed.). Basic Books. basicbooks.com
  • Hutchins, E. L., Hollan, J. D., & Norman, D. A. (1985). Direct manipulation interfaces. Human–Computer Interaction, 1(4), 311–338. doi
H
Heuristic evaluation

A review in which evaluators check an interface against a set of usability principles (Nielsen & Molich, 1990).

  • Nielsen, J., & Molich, R. (1990). Heuristic evaluation of user interfaces. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 249–256). ACM. doi
  • Nielsen, J. (1994). Enhancing the explanatory power of usability heuristics. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 152–158). ACM. doi
  • Nielsen, J. (2024). 10 usability heuristics for user interface design. Nielsen Norman Group. (Original work published 1994) nngroup.com
Hick's law

The finding that choice reaction time rises with the number of alternatives; a reason to make the main action stand out, not a rule to cut every menu down (Hick, 1952).

  • Hick, W. E. (1952). On the rate of gain of information. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 4(1), 11–26. doi
  • Hyman, R. (1953). Stimulus information as a determinant of reaction time. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 45(3), 188–196. doi
  • Liu, W., Gori, J., Rioul, O., Beaudouin-Lafon, M., & Guiard, Y. (2020). How relevant is Hick's law for HCI? In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1–11). ACM. doi
I
Inclusive design

Designing so that the widest range of people can use a product, by considering from the start those most likely to be excluded by disability, language, age or circumstance.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Holmes, K. (2018). Mismatch: How inclusion shapes design. MIT Press. doi
  • Horton, S., & Quesenbery, W. (2013). A web for everyone: Designing accessible user experiences. Rosenfeld Media.
Information architecture

The way a product's content is organised, labelled and linked so that people can find what they need and understand where they are.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Rosenfeld, L., Morville, P., & Arango, J. (2015). Information architecture: For the web and beyond (4th ed.). O'Reilly Media.
Information scent

The cues in a link, label or heading that tell a user how likely it is to lead to what they are looking for.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Pirolli, P., & Card, S. (1999). Information foraging. Psychological Review, 106(4), 643–675. doi
Intrinsic load

Load caused by the complexity of the material itself.

  • Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J. J. G., & Paas, F. G. W. C. (1998). Cognitive architecture and instructional design. Educational Psychology Review, 10(3), 251–296. doi
  • Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J. J. G., & Paas, F. (2019). Cognitive architecture and instructional design: 20 years later. Educational Psychology Review, 31(2), 261–292. doi
J
Jakob's law

The observation that users spend most of their time on other products, so they expect a new one to work the way those already do.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Yablonski, J. (2020). Laws of UX: Using psychology to design better products & services. O'Reilly Media.
M
Miller's law

The much-quoted claim that people can hold about seven items in short-term memory. Later research puts the limit nearer four chunks, and it is not a rule for menu length.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63(2), 81–97. doi
  • Cowan, N. (2001). The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24(1), 87–114. doi
  • Yablonski, J. (2020). Laws of UX: Using psychology to design better products & services. O'Reilly Media.
Mobile first

Designing for the smallest screen and slowest connection first, then adding to the design for larger screens, which forces early decisions about what matters most.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Wroblewski, L. (2011). Mobile first. A Book Apart.
P
Pattern

A reusable solution to a common user task, such as signing in, built from components.

R06 An observation that repeats across people or sessions, reported with a count.

  • Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. doi
  • Frost, B. (2016). Atomic design. Brad Frost Web. atomicdesign.bradfrost.com
  • Government Digital Service. (n.d.-a). Contribution criteria. GOV.UK Design System. Retrieved September 17, 2026, from design-system.service.gov.uk
Pattern library

A catalogue of an organisation's interface components and patterns, with examples and guidance on use. It is one part of a design system.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Frost, B. (2016). Atomic design. Brad Frost Web. atomicdesign.bradfrost.com
  • Kholmatova, A. (2017). Design systems: A practical guide to creating design languages for digital products. Smashing Media.
R
Recognition over recall

Designing so users choose from visible options instead of retrieving information from memory.

  • Budiu, R. (2024). Memory recognition and recall in user interfaces. Nielsen Norman Group. nngroup.com
  • Nielsen, J. (2024). 10 usability heuristics for user interface design. Nielsen Norman Group. (Original work published 1994) nngroup.com
Responsive design

Building one set of pages whose layout adapts to the width of the screen, using flexible grids, flexible images and media queries.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Marcotte, E. (2011). Responsive web design. A Book Apart.
S
Screen reader

Software that reads out the content and controls of a screen as speech, or sends them to a braille display, for people who are blind or have low vision.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • World Wide Web Consortium. (2023). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 (W3C Recommendation). w3.org
  • Horton, S., & Quesenbery, W. (2013). A web for everyone: Designing accessible user experiences. Rosenfeld Media.
Seductive details

Interesting and irrelevant information added to a lesson; learners given it tended to perform worse than those who learned without it (Sundararajan & Adesope, 2020).

  • Sundararajan, N., & Adesope, O. (2020). Keep it coherent: A meta-analysis of the seductive details effect. Educational Psychology Review, 32(3), 707–734. doi
  • Mayer, R. E. (2024). The past, present, and future of the cognitive theory of multimedia learning. Educational Psychology Review, 36(1), Article 8. doi
Semantic versioning

A version numbering scheme of major, minor and patch numbers that signals whether a release breaks existing use (Preston-Werner, n.d.).

  • Preston-Werner, T. (n.d.). Semantic versioning 2.0.0. Retrieved September 17, 2026, from semver.org
  • Government Digital Service. (n.d.-c). Versioning [GOV.UK Frontend documentation]. GitHub. Retrieved September 17, 2026, from github.com
Signifier

Any perceivable indicator that communicates appropriate behaviour to a person (Norman, 2013).

  • Norman, D. (2013). The design of everyday things (Rev. and expanded ed.). Basic Books. basicbooks.com
  • Norman, D. A. (2008). Signifiers, not affordances. Interactions, 15(6), 18–19.
Slips and mistakes

Two kinds of user error. A slip is the right intention carried out wrongly, such as a mis-tap; a mistake is the wrong intention, formed from a faulty understanding.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Norman, D. (2013). The design of everyday things (Rev. and expanded ed.). Basic Books. basicbooks.com
  • Reason, J. (1990). Human error. Cambridge University Press. doi
Spatial contiguity principle

People learn better when words and pictures are presented near rather than far from each other on the page or screen (Mayer, 2024).

  • Mayer, R. E. (2024). The past, present, and future of the cognitive theory of multimedia learning. Educational Psychology Review, 36(1), Article 8. doi
  • Mayer, R. E. (2021). Multimedia learning (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press. doi
T
Touch target

The area of a screen that responds to a tap. Small or crowded targets cause errors, so accessibility guidance sets minimum sizes.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • World Wide Web Consortium. (2023). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 (W3C Recommendation). w3.org
  • Budiu, R. (2022). Fitts's law and its applications in UX. Nielsen Norman Group. nngroup.com
  • Fitts, P. M. (1954). The information capacity of the human motor system in controlling the amplitude of movement. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 47(6), 381–391. doi
U
User experience (UX)

A person's perceptions and responses that result from using, or expecting to use, a product, system or service.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Norman, D. (2013). The design of everyday things (Rev. and expanded ed.). Basic Books. basicbooks.com
  • International Organization for Standardization. (2019). Ergonomics of human-system interaction — Part 210: Human-centred design for interactive systems (ISO 9241-210:2019).
UX writing

Writing the words inside an interface, such as button labels, error messages and instructions, so that users can complete their task. The short pieces of text are often called microcopy.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Podmajersky, T. (2019). Strategic writing for UX: Drive engagement, conversion, and retention with every word. O'Reilly Media.
V
Visual hierarchy

The ordering of elements on a screen by size, weight, colour and position so that the eye meets the most important thing first.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Lidwell, W., Holden, K., & Butler, J. (2010). Universal principles of design (Rev. and updated ed.). Rockport Publishers.
W
WAI-ARIA

A W3C specification of attributes added to web code to tell assistive technology the role, name and state of interface parts that plain HTML cannot describe.

  • R08UX foundations and design systemsFrom the field · not in the guide
  • World Wide Web Consortium. (2023). Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.2 (W3C Recommendation).
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

The World Wide Web Consortium's accessibility standard; version 2.2 sets minimums such as 4.5:1 contrast for normal text and 24 by 24 CSS pixel targets (World Wide Web Consortium, 2023).

R05 The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines; version 2.2 became a W3C Recommendation in October 2023, and meeting it does not address every user need (World Wide Web Consortium, 2023).

  • World Wide Web Consortium. (2023). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 (W3C Recommendation). w3.org
  • W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. (2024). Involving users in evaluating web accessibility. w3.org
Working memory

The small, temporary store in which people hold and work on information.

  • Cowan, N. (2001). The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24(1), 87–114. doi
  • Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63(2), 81–97. doi

Nearby

The guide itself, and the ones either side

Read ux foundations and design systems (opens in a new tab)Design methods: sketching, prototyping and critique Agile and Scrum in practice All 21 guides
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