Glossary » Application Domains

PIM

personal information manager; a software application designed to help people manage personal information, such as appointments, contact lists, notes, and reminders, and often integrated with email/messaging systems. Their user interfaces are distinguished by the relative lack of structure to the…

playability

the degree to which a game is fun to play and usable, with an emphasis on the interaction style and plot-quality of the game; the quality of gameplay.

Playability is affected by the quality of the storyline, responsiveness, pace, usability,…

playtesting

testing of games (including usability testing), examining pace, flow, narrative, controls, entertainment value, appeal for different target populations, challenge, novelty, etc.

power law of practice

an expression of time to perform a task based on practice trials, saying that people improve in speed at a decaying exponential rate.

T_n = T₁ n^-a, a ~ 0.4

T_n = the time to perform a task after n…

prototyping theatre

a puppet show approach to prototyping and user testing. User interface elements, such as screens and widgets are held up in the theatre, by hand or with sticks, to demonstrate how the screen works. Multiple puppeteers are needed for complex…

puck

a hand-held pointing device used in conjunction with an input tablet for precise positioning. A puck may contain crosshairs for aligning the puck position with drawings placed below it.

readability

the degree to which the meaning of text is accessible, based on the complexity of sentences and the difficulty of the vocabulary that is used. Readability indexes usually rank usability by the age or grade level required for someone to…

readme file

a file often included with a software release called “README” (or “readme.txt” or something similar) that provides information on installation, upgrades and versions, compatibility, and other product documentation that was too last-minute to make it into the printed documentation.

realtime groupware

software used to help people to work in groups, while working together at the same time. Examples include phones and videoconferencing, playing arcade games together, and shared drawing tools that allow people to see what their conversational partners are drawing…

reminder system

a system for alerting a user to important items on a schedule, after a timeout, or when a critical event happens. Used, for instance, in a medical setting to remind clinicians of necessary tests or interventions. Useful especially to people…

resize handle

a small box that appears at each of the corners of a selected object (and sometimes at the sides also) that can be dragged to alter the size of the object.

RSI

repetitive stress injury; injuries resulting from excessive repeated movement with little variation, such as typing and mousing. RSI can result from many activities (such as assembly line work), and interacting with computers is only one manifestation. Damage occurs to soft…

rubberbanding

when creating or resizing graphics, such as a rectangle or oval, the way it stretches, like a rubberband, to follow the pointer as you drag it.

scaffolding

a teaching technique where support tools help manage mechanics that would be difficult to master while the students learns higher-level concepts.

sccs

source code control system or version control system (vcs) or revision control system (rcs); a software application designed to help coordinate document modifications and updates among a group of people (especially coordinating updates to software source code). Source code control…

screen scaping

converting a character-based user interface to a graphical user interface by capturing the output of a character-based system and doing a surface-level transformation into the GUI. This is a simpler approach to upgrading a legacy system than reimplementing it, but…

shared whiteboard

allows two or more people to view and draw on a shared drawing surface even when they’re at a distance. This may be used, for instance, during a phone call, where each person can jot down notes (e.g. a name,…

shared window system

a system that allows a single-user application to be shared among multiple users without modifying the original application. Such a system shows identical views of the application to the users and combines the input from the users or allows only…

snapping / gravity

a graphics input technique – when people draw or drag objects near a gridline, guideline, or another object, the object they are drawing or moving automatically jumps into alignment (snaps) as soon as it gets close, as if the guideline…

spot graphic

an image used as an illustration or decoration on a page or on the screen, generally without a functional purpose other than its visual appeal and dynamics within a layout.

sprite

an operating system capability that allows programmers to easily create independent graphical objects (“sprites”) that can move around the screen. A sprite automatically handles redrawing areas of the screen that it crosses over, saving the programmer from worrying about updating…

stone-paper-scissors

a model for game design in which the consequences of simultaneous actions are non-transitive. That is, no single action takes precedence over all others. This lends interest to a game by preventing any single strategy from being dominant in all…

task-based help

or “task-oriented help system”; instructions for users that are given in terms of step-by-step procedures for performing tasks. This is in contrast to help systems that simply provide explanations of what different parts of the program are and what they…

tech tree

in strategy games, the set of technologies that can be developed, organized in a rough hierarchy where each technology can be developed only after its parent technologies have been developed.

technical writing

creating text that communicates facts in a simple, direct, and effective manner. Technical writers do not only write ABOUT “technology”. They also write FOR technological systems, such as computer software. They may write instructions, labels, dialogs, warnings, help systems, manuals,…