Glossary » Psychology
affordance
a situation where an object’s sensory characteristics intuitively imply its functionality and use.
A button, by being slightly raised above an otherwise flat surface, suggests the idea of pushing it. A lever, by being an appropriate size for grasping, suggests…
Read more »analytic modeling
the application of user models and interface models to make quantitative predictions of user performance with an interface.
Read more »artificial intelligence
“AI”; a field of study which examines how to perform high-level thinking on computers. Artificial intelligence research is typically associated with domains such as speech synthesis and recognition, language translation, image recognition, and strategy and planning. AI research is also…
Read more »automaticity
a level of skilled performance characterized by high speed, minimal errors, inability to verbally describe the thought process, and low interference with other simultaneous activities.
Read more »between-subjects design
a study designed to make a comparison of 2 or more designs and that compares them by having one set of users try one design and another set of users try another design, measuring their performance for each design. This…
Read more »capture error
a type of slip (a kind of error) where a more frequent and more practiced behavior takes place when a similar, but less familiar, action was intended. Examples include telling someone your home phone number when you intended to give…
Read more »chromostereopsis
a phenomenon of visual perception: different wavelengths of light focus at slightly different depths in the eye. Thus, it is difficult to focus on an image that combines two colors because each color is fuzzy when the other color is…
Read more »clown-invariant research design
an empirical study designed to be sufficiently robust, both in the effect being studied and in the method of the study, that you get the same results even if the investigator is wearing a clown suit.
Read more »CMN-GOMS
Card, Moran, and Newell GOMS. CMN-GOMS adds hierarchical structure to the Keystroke Level Model (KLM) version of GOMS. Tasks are organized as a series of goals and subgoals and operators are organized into subroutines called methods. CMN-GOMS can provide task…
Read more »cognetics
cognitive engineering; the study of human mental abilities, their limitations, and the application of this in design.
Read more »cognitive artifact
a physical object (or software application) used in the process of thinking, remembering, and problem-solving. Many types of drawings (on paper, whiteboards, and blackboards) can support thinking, and many software applications are specifically designed to help people solve problems (such…
Read more »cognitive load
the level of effort associated with thinking and reasoning (including perception, memory, language, etc.), thus potentially interfering with other thought processes. A user interface strives to minimize the cognitive load associated with operating the interface itself so that all of…
Read more »cognitive modeling
producing a computational model for how people perform tasks and solve problems, based on psychological principles. These models may be outlines of tasks written on paper or computer programs which enable us to predict the time it takes for people…
Read more »cognitive psychology
a branch of psychology whose focus on phenomena such as learning, memory, perception, and problem-solving lends itself well to applications in human-computer interaction.
Cognitive psychology is often characterized by the common use of experimental research methods and formal mathematical or…
Read more »confidentiality
in collecting data in user studies, confidentiality guarantees a person that their data will not be released in a way that it can be tracked to them as an individual. Anonymity is slightly different, in that it guarantees that a…
Read more »confound
any factor that might serve as an alternative (and generally undesirable) explanation for a result seen in a study, such as non-randomized samples, practice and history effects, and any arbitrary differences between things that are being compared.
Read more »construct validity
the degree to which the testing tool and measurement tool used in a study accurately reflect the conceptual question of interest. For instance, asking people whether they feel that a product is usable is not necessarily an accurate measure of…
Read more »conversation analysis
a technique generally used for analyzing multi-user interactions, such as spoken conversations in a meeting. Conversation analysis is focused on detailed analysis of naturalistic transcripts of conversations.
Read more »CPM-GOMS
Cognitive Perceptual Motor GOMS. CPM-GOMS is a cognitive modeling technique based on CMN-GOMS with an emphasis on parallel activities. Where other GOMS techniques assume that humans do one thing at a time, CPM-GOMS assumes as many operations as possible will…
Read more »debriefing
after running a user study, explaining to a participant what happened and what the study is for, explaining any deception used in the study, asking for any remaining comments or concerns, and ensuring that the participant walks away with no…
Read more »demand characteristics
a potential problem in user studies where people being studied have a tendency to behave in a way that reacts to what they think is expected of them. In user testing, for instance, people may tend to say an interface…
Read more »depth perception
the experience of perceiving a third dimension of depth into a computer screen. For instance, windows add a certain depth by having shadows, and buttons indicate their dimensionality by having beveled edges.
Many different graphical qualities can act as depth…
Read more »distributed cognition
the notion of people thinking and solving problems collectively, rather than simply as isolated individuals. Those interested in distributed cognition are interested in how people communicate and jointly use artifacts to accomplish joint work.
Read more »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…
Read more »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…
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