Glossary » e

e-commerce

electronic commerce; broadly defined, any use of the internet to facilitate buying, selling, or any other kind of commercial transaction. Most often refers to websites that display product information and allow online purchasing and payment.

earcon

an auditory icon; a recognizable sound used as a symbol. An example of the use of an earcon is to play sounds as rollovers to clarify the meaning of unlabeled or abstract buttons.

early adopter

a person who chooses to purchase or use relatively new technology before it is fully embraced by the mass market. Early adopters are therefore people who have a stronger need for the technology (such as a specific application that doesn’t…

ease of use

effectiveness at achieving a person’s goals in a way that is satisfying to that person, and is fast and error-free.

EBS

electronic brainstorming; the use of computers to support idea generation, especially in a collaborative setting. Computer support can be helpful by simplifying the collection and organization of ideas, by providing anonymity and thus supporting more fluid generation of ideas, and…

ecological validity

the extent to which the context of a user study matches the context of actual use of a system, such that it is reasonable to suppose that the results of the study are representative of actual usage and that the…

economy of effort

a principle of design process that says that design and production time should be in proportion to the value it produces in the quality of the final product serving users’ needs.

Also, a principle of interaction design that says that…

economy of expression

a design principle advocating that characteristics of a visual display should be maximally efficient in representing information — that things that are different should be represented differently and that each distinction should be a meaningful one.

EDS

electronic discussion systems

edutainment / infotainment

an approach to education that frames the instructional material in the context of entertainment, such as a game or sensationalist video. This approach is grounded in the importance of motivation but is often criticized when the entertainment compromises the informational…

effectiveness

the degree to which an interface facilitates a user in accomplishing the task for which it was intended. This normally refers to the degree to which errors are avoided and tasks are successful, measure by “success rate” or “task completion…

efficiency

the rate or speed at which an interface enables a user to accurately and successfully complete a task. While faster response time is usually better, consistent response time is also important.

egocentric viewpoint

a virtual reality or immersive environment that is displayed into a person, by projecting it directly to a person’s senses with, for instance, a head-mounted display and headphones, as opposed to displaying the environment onto screens external to the person.…

egoless programming

an ideal of programming practice that involves being unattached to your code and eager to hear criticism and make improvements.

electronic ink

in pen-based computing systems, the untranslated scrawls a user makes on a screen, stored as a set of lines or points. Electronic ink may be stored as is, or translated into text or structured graphics for further editing, searching, etc.…

ellipsis

an ellipsis (“…”) is used at the end of menu items to indicate that additional information is needed before the action of the menu item is carried out, usually by bringing up a dialog box. Dialog boxes that are merely…

email

by far the most common groupware application (ignoring of course, the traditional telephone). While the basic technology is designed to pass simple messages between 2 people, even relatively basic email systems of today typically include interesting features for forwarding messages,…

embedded computers

computers built in to devices that are traditionally not viewed as containing computers and where the computer is often viewed as an invisible component. Examples of places embedded computers might be found include cars, microwaves, toasters, refrigerators, and showers. Embedded…

embedded help

text that is integrated into the user interface and provides instructions right next to the part of the interface that it applies to. It is not a separate help system and not even something that needs to be requested by…

embedded links

links within the content of a webpage or hypertext document that are explicitly authored to lead to a relevant area.

emoticons

symbols used in electronic communication to convey emotional overtones, especially in text-based systems such as email and chat. The prototypical example is the smiley , and its many variants, such as frowning , winking , with tongue sticking out ,…

empirical methods

any of a large number of methods which are based on measurement — in user interface design, this usually means measuring the activities of people as they use computer systems. This specifically does not include theoretical methods, analytic methods, usability…

EMR

electronic meeting room -and- electronic medical record. As a meeting room, an EMR is a room equipped with computer stations designed to aid in the meeting process. These computer systems are typically set up with Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS),…

EMS

electronic meeting systems

end box

buttons at either end of a slider or scrollbar that allow a user to immediately select the minimum and maximum values of the range or scroll to the beginning and end (they are part of the Open Look interface standard,…

end user

the primary target user of a system, usually assumed to be the least computer-savvy among users. The system administrator, for instance, would be considered a valid user of the software, but wouldn’t generally be considered the end user except for…

end-user programming

programming that is done by a software user who is not a programmer, presumably without any specific training in programming. The idea is to make the power of computers fully accessible to all users so that they are not limited…

entry tunnel

a sequence of screens that a user must proceed through upon entering a website and before being given access to the full range of options on the website. An entry tunnel is usually used to force users to view advertising,…

environmental control

technology to enable people with disabilities to control devices in their vicinity, such as lights, door switches, air conditioners, phones, and televisions.

environmental profile

a characterization of the environment in which a system will be used. Aspects may include ambient lighting and noise, temperature, humidity, smoke, chemical substances, vibrations, the visual environment, enclosures and furnishings, the user terminal, and other human activity.

ephemeral awareness

information about others and their activities that changes quickly, such as their current facial expression, location, or posture; as opposed to more permanent awareness information about them, such as their current address, job position, or favorite food.

ergonomics

a design tradition preceding human-computer interaction and strongly related. Ergonomics is often used relatively synonymously with “human factors”. It studies how to design human-machine systems with a concern for human needs, especially focused on work environments, efficiency, and safety. The…

error

(human error) the result of any action whose consequences are not what was intended by the person performing the action. Errors are commonly classified as slips (automatic processes interfering with an action) or mistakes (failures in reasoning or selection of…

escape key

a key on the keyboard used to exit a mode. This can apply to moving upwards through a hierarchy of screens or stopping the execution of a program. Also used to break out of a command mode (where typing issues…

ethnography

an approach to research which involves in-depth study through observation, interviews, and artifact analysis in an attempt to gain a thorough understanding from many perspectives.

event handler

a central software routine for applications in graphical user interfaces that processes events as they arrive, primarily user input such as keystrokes and mouse clicks, but also system events such as time-based triggers. The events arrive in an event buffer.…

event-driven interface

the kind of interface common to most modern operating systems where the user can initiate actions at any time — the system responds to user “events”, such as typing, mouse movements, or mouse clicks. This is in contrast to the…

exit tunnel

a sequence of screens the user views when they leave a website (or any media presentation), parallel to the use of an entry tunnel to enter a website, but much harder to enforce on the web than an entry tunnel.…

exocentric viewpoint

a virtual reality or immersive environment that is displayed around a person, for instance, by projecting scenes onto adjacent walls, rather than displaying it directly to someone’s senses (e.g. with a head-mounted display).

expando

a text-input region for pen-based systems that expands when it is tapped, allowing more room for pen-based input. It shrinks back down when it is not being edited to conserve screen space.

experiment

an empirical study designed to relate cause and effect by ruling out as many alternative causes as possible and by actually manipulating the cause to obtain the effect, as opposed to merely finding a correlation between the two that may…

explicit destruction

a design principle that suggests that anytime information is permanently deleted (or for that matter, any irreversible action is performed), the user should be required to explicitly indicate that the deletion/destruction is actually desired. This is important when deleting files,…

exploratory learning

an approach to teaching and training that encourages the learner to explore and experiment to uncover relationships, with much less of a focus on didactic training (teaching students by lecturing them). Exploratory learning does not necessarily mean an unguided or…

external link

a link that goes from a website to another website, at a different address. Such links can be disorienting because the primary navigation structure no longer appears once someone is on a new site. The reliability of the external site…

external validity

the degree to which the results of a study can safely be generalized to apply to settings and parameters outside those of the original study, such as to other populations, times, places, similar tasks, and other measurement instruments.

extreme programming

an approach to managing programming projects to maximize the quality output of programming teams and optimize shared knowledge and training. The technique relies on pairs of programmers sharing a single computer and collaboratively solving problems. Programming tasks are kept to…

eye candy

graphics and illustrations designed primarily for the purpose of pleasing the visual senses; gratuitous imagery; fun and entertaining imagery with little functional value. Usually used pejoratively, eye candy may be appropriate for certain entertainment and marketing applications, but is generally…

eye contact

in conversations, people are aware of when people are looking into their eyes or not, and they use eye contact to signal turn-taking and attentiveness. In conventional videoconferencing systems, the camera is spatially offset from the monitor for viewing other…

eye-tracking

a range of devices are capable of observing a person’s pupil to determine the direction of their gaze.

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