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| Features to make a product usable by groups with disabilities e.g. people who can’t see or hear well, are colour blind, can’t use input devices such as a mouse, have difficulty reading |
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| A database is a store of data in a structured way. An example digital product that includes a database might be a website that has details of music tracks and albums, or a hotel website showing details of hotels and reviews. |
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| An electronic book or magazine. These are interactive so the person can click from page to page and may include video or audio as well. An e-book may be read on an e-book reader such as a Kindle, or on any device which has a web browser (Internet explorer is an example of a web browser). |
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| An e-learning digital product is one where the main purpose is to train or educate. In school Fronter would be considered an e-learning digital product. |
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| Any aspect of what a Digital Product can do for a user e.g. send an email, search, download files. |
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| A computer game. This may be played on any platform (e.g. phone, game console, computer, online etc) |
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| A type of website specifically focussed on one thing, for example an information point may be used for a tourist guide to London. |
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| A template which can be used to describe the target audience of a digitial product. It will include details such as age, gender, experience and knowledge of digital technology, lifestyle preferences, occupation etc. |
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| The digital device that you use to access the product, e.g. a mobile phone, tablet, laptop, game terminal, computer |
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| A digital poster or advert is used to advertise something. It may be a single page however it can also have multiple pages and interactivity or transitions. |
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| A presentation displays a series of pages. An example might be a sales presentation about a new product, or a presentation about a company or teaching topic. PowerPoint is specific presentation software but this is not the only software you can use to create a presentation. |
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| A computer simulation is imitating the behaviour of some situation or process digitally. For example, you might simulate the weather patterns, or how traffic flows round a roundabout. |
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| The people, or groups of people, who are expected to the use the digital product. Also referred to as the “users” of a digital product. |
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| The quality of the digital product and the process of designing the digital product so that it is usable by the intended target audience, i.e. how usable is the product? |
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| Literally the experience that someone has when they use the digital product. Was it useful to them? Did they find it easily? Could they use it easily? |
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| The means by which the user and a computer system interact, in particular the use of input devices (mouse, keyboard, game controller) and software (i.e. the digital product itself). |
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| A collection of webpages accessed via the Internet. |
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| Audio refer to sounds and includes sound effects, sound tracks and voice-overs. |
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| A codec performs the encoding and decoding of the raw audio data while the data itself is stored in a file with a specific audio file format. The codec enables compression and decompression of digital audio. |
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| a set of rules outlining the responsibilities of / or proper practices for an individual or an organisation |
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A process to reduce the size of a file, usually so that it can be downloaded or opened quicker. Compressing a file usually (but not always) removes some of the data from the file so quality can be affected.
Compression is usually used for files that have a large size such as images, audio and video.
Compression may be “lossy” i.e. data is lost, or “lossless” i.e. data is not lost. |
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| Content is another way to describe anything that is used within the digital product. Content could be the text you use, video clips, sound, images etc. |
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| An element may be a file such as an image or a sound that is used within the digital product. You can edit the elements individually as well as editing the whole product. |
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| When you download a media file, such as a video, the entire file is saved on your computer, usually in a temporary folder, which means you physically have the video. |
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| Intellectual property rights |
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| Intellectual property rights cover the ownership of ideas. Ideas may include literary and artistic works (protected by copyright), inventions (protected by patents), signs for distinguishing goods of an enterprise (protected by trademarks) and other elements. |
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| When a Digital Product is made up of, or integrates, two or more of these elements it can be deemed as Multimedia |
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| Multi-sensory user experience |
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| An experience that involves more than one of the senses (hearing, touch, sight etc). Humans are more engaged by things that appeal to multiple senses. We tend to have a better memory for things that stimulate more than one sense, e.g. if an interaction is complemented by unique sound cues or vivid imagery it is more likely to be remembered. |
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| Re-purposing (digital content) |
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| Re-purposing is about using the same asset in another context, e.g. using the same text on a website as in a printed marketing brochure. |
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| A sound effect is a sound other than speech or music made artificially for use in a digital product. It often represents an action, e.g. a sound effect of a door closing in an audio book, a “ping” as email arrives in your inbox. |
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| A soundtrack is usually recorded music to accompany images in a film, electronic book, digital game etc. |
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| The file is sent to the user in a more or less constant stream, and the user watches it as it arrives. It is not saved to the computer, you don't physically have the video. |
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A video codec is a device or software that enables compression or decompression of digital video.
Video creates large file sizes so compression / decompression are needed to make the files of a reasonable size for accessing on digital devices and via an Internet connection. |
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| A recording of a voice. Examples of where voiceovers can be relevant include teaching English as a foreign language; or for young learners, to give them is an interactive mix of text, audio and visual stimuli. |
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| If you put rubbish (e.g. meaningless or inaccurate data) into a digital product then you won’t get the right response, e.g. if you want to send an email but type the wrong address then it won’t get sent. So, guide the user to make sure they provide the correct input by putting controls in place to avoid incorrect data / information being put in. |
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| Web designers add a text description to an image so that if the image cannot be viewed then the text provides information to say what the image represents. Alt tags on images are also used by devices such as screen readers. |
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| A planned combination of colours to be used in a digital product. |
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| How the elements or aspects of a digital product are put together to form a design. Aspects of composition include colour, line, shapes, balance and contrast. |
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| Data entry forms provide an interface to collect data from a user. For example, think about the information you enter to register to use an online service. |
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| Disability Discrimination Act |
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Definition
| The Disability Discrimination Act says that if a Digital Product such as a website or an application is unusable by people with disabilities you are discriminating against them. This is law in the UK. It is a legal requirement to ensure that the digital product does not discriminate so you need to be aware of how to make your product accessible. |
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| A field is one piece of data that needs to be entered in the form. Fields usually require the user to type, or select an option. |
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| A font family is a category of fonts. They do not refer to any specific typeface (i.e. Verdana, Arial) but groups of fonts with similar characteristics. Each category is suited to different uses. The main font categories are serif, sans serif, script, monospace and fantasy. |
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| A house style is set of guidelines or checklist that sets out preferred fonts, colours, margins (i.e. layout) and may also dictate the way in which a company logo can be displayed. |
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| This refers to how the user can interact with a product. Interactivity requires the user to do something such as click on a button, enter data etc. |
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| Latin text that is used as “dummy” text in digital product design to give an impression of how the text would look without having to write the actual words and content. |
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| Radio buttons and check boxes |
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| These can be used to make a field easier to complete where there are a restricted number of options. |
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| The Rule of Thirds says that most designs can be made more interesting by visually dividing the page into thirds vertically and/or horizontally and placing our most important elements within those thirds. |
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| A device used by people with visual impairments which reads the content of a web page and turns it to speech. |
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| A template is a pre-developed master page or screen layout used to make new pages or screens with a similar design, pattern, or style etc. |
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| Timings refer to how long something appears on screen. This is applied to transitions and animations usually. |
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| Transition is the process of going from one state to another, e.g. from one screen to the next in an animation. Transitions are used to make a product more fun and engaging. |
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| Typography refers to the font style, and size, that will be used in the product. Different fonts styles and sizes may be used for headings, subheadings, main body text. |
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| Visual hierarchy refers to using techniques to emphasise or de-emphasise areas in a design. It can be achieved by using a change in font size, image or colour. |
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| Web accessibility standards |
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| It is not a legal requirement to meet accessibility standards. However, the standards provide guidelines for how you can develop digital products that don’t discriminate. |
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Background information is gathered to inform the design and development of a new or updated Digital Product to identify what is intended to be achieved.
This research may involve an evaluation of an earlier version or a competitors’ Digital Product to identify usability problems and to get baseline standard so you can measure the usability of your product against it. |
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| The process of collecting and agreeing detailed information about intended users, their tasks and the documents they use by taking a sample of the documents that they use and/or create. |
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| Involves encouraging an invited group of intended/actual users of a Digital Product to share their thoughts, feelings, attitudes and ideas on a certain subject. A facilitator usually asks the question and records the responses from the discussion. |
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| Usually a one to one meeting where the interviewer asks questions of the interviewee. |
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| The typical lifecycle for managing a digital product is iterative. Iterative means repeating parts of the process, in this case repeating design, build, test several times, usually adding more functions to the product in each iteration. |
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| A document provided by a client that states what they want from a digital product (i.e. their needs/requirements). |
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| Typically a client/customer would issue a ‘brief’ and the product developer would respond with a ‘proposal’. The proposal says how your digital product will meet the user requirements. |
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| Profiling is about collecting and agreeing detailed information about the intended target audience of a digital product. Profiling tries to find out · Who are the intended users and what are their tasks? (Why will they use the Digital Product? What is their experience and expertise?) and What are the technical and environmental constraints? (What types of hardware will be used and physical environments?) |
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| A means of asking users for their responses to a pre-defined set of questions. |
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| User centred design process |
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| User Centred Design is putting the intended users of a Digital Product at the centre of the design and development process. This is an iterative process where you would typically carry out the following activities in a cycle: Requirements, Design, Build, Test, Evaluate |
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| An investigator views users as they work in their natural environment, and takes notes on the activity that takes place. Observation may be either direct, where the investigator is actually present during the task, or indirect, where the task is viewed by some other means such as through use of a video recorder. |
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| The process of naming and numbering files so that they can be stored and easily found. Each new version is usually saved with a new number e.g. v01, v02 |
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| Accessibility testing ensure the website is not discriminatory to those with impairments to their sight, motor skills, hearing or cognitive abilities. |
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| Testing that is carried out by a computer using a specialist testing program. |
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| The process of trying out a product to gain feedback or information to help improve the design. |
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| Process of evaluating whether the product fulfils the requirements, to check whether the functionality of a product is working as expected or not. Functionality that might be tested e.g. Login functionality, Compose mail functionality, Delete mail functionality, etc. |
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| Testing that is carried out by a person. |
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| Process of evaluating the quality attributes and characteristics of a Digital Product such as performance or security. |
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| Testing how fast a product performs, or how it copes with a certain number of users. |
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| Digital products are tested to make sure that they work as designed. The process of testing is often called quality assurance. The aim is to make sure the quality of the product is appropriate. |
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| The purpose of testing is to identify potential problems. These problems are called defects, bugs or errors. If you fix the defect you need to carry out the tests again, i.e. re-test. |
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| The process of identifying whether a Digital Product protects its data while maintaining functionality. Security testing ensures that the Digital Product behaves as expected in terms of protecting data and dealing with malicious users. |
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| Stability testing (or disaster recovery plan/testing) |
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| A disaster recover plan is a plan for how to recover if there is a disaster. Stability testing simulates a disaster and then tests that this plan works. |
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| Testing for a specific result, usually following test cases. |
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| A Test Case is a detailed procedure that fully tests a feature or an aspect of a feature. Whereas the test plan describes what to test, a test case describes how to perform a particular test. |
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| A test plan states what you are going to test, how and by whom. |
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| A selection of the target audience involved in the testing of a digital product. |
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| Testing is the process of determining whether a product meets client expectations or not. |
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Usability is the quality which defines the ease-of-use of a Digital Product for the general user. It takes into account factors such as the consistency of the User Interface throughout the application and how straightforward it is for the user to accomplish certain tasks.
Usability Testing is performed to measure the level of Usability, to provide a better understanding of how the user interacts with the application, what makes them stick to our product and what makes them leave our product. |
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| Entity relationship diagrams |
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Definition
Describes the connections between different database tables in graphical form. Provides a data-focused view of the main data objects, or entities, within a system. This in turn help us think about how data is represented and how different sets of data relate to each other.
An entity is a person, place, thing or event about which we need to capture and store data e.g. a customer might be an entity in a database of customer records. |
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| Explain a process clearly through symbols and text. Used to diagram the user's experience as they navigate through a Digital Product. |
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| A scale model, used for demonstration, study, or testing. An interactive Mock-up lets you try out the navigation, test an interaction, or see if a button label just feels right when you click on it. Allows you to plan effectively the visual arrangement of the Digital Product’s content. |
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| May be a printed “board” or a page with colour scheme, image style, typography, textures etc. It establishes the overall atmosphere and emotional impact of the Digital Product. Moodboards for websites establish the aesthetic feel of a website. |
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A prototype or simulation of the dynamic character of a simple interface mock-up.
Can be used during the early stages of the design cycle to demonstrate design options and concepts to an audience for feedback. |
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| A script is used to make any narration audio easy to read and record. It is the words that are going to be spoken written out in full. |
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A map of a web-site. Can be either a design document used as a planning tool for web design or a web page that lists the pages on a web site, typically organised in hierarchical fashion providing a general top-down view of the overall site contents.
An important way of communicating with search engines, as they can improve what is known as ‘search engine optimisation’, meaning that you tell search engines where you'd like them to go, thus ensuring that all pages can be found. |
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Give an impression of what the product will look like so the client can say what they likes and dislikes and give feedback to the designers so that they can make changes. Each page or scene is sketched in the storyboard.
Also useful to identify what elements will need to be gathered for the product. |
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| Overview of how the main screens/scenes in a digital product are linked. Used to plan the navigation or flow of a product. Shows the people working on the product how the section/element they are creating fits in to the whole. |
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| As for the storyboard but also contain details of effects and transitions, timing and audio (soundtrack of music or narration) |
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