UX Glossary for Non-Technical Founders: 30 Terms in Plain Language
Guide
Summary
Three terms cover most of what you need to evaluate any UX proposal.
A UX audit is an expert review of your product that finds where users struggle and ranks the fixes by business impact; think of it as a building inspection before renovation.
Usability testing means watching real users try to complete tasks in your product while a researcher observes; it catches problems that no expert review can see, because users behave in ways nobody predicts.
A heuristic evaluation is an expert checking your interface against ten established usability principles, like "the system should always show what is happening"; it is fast and cheap, but it is opinion, not evidence. Everything else in this glossary builds on these three. Each term below gets a one-paragraph definition, a one-line "why you should care," and an example from a real product decision, so you can walk into any design meeting and know exactly what is being sold to you.
If you have ever nodded through a vendor meeting and Googled the words afterwards, this page is for you. Bookmark it. Send it to your co-founder before the next agency call.
What is a UX audit?
A structured review of your product by UX specialists, combining expert evaluation, your analytics, and often sessions with real users. The output is a prioritized list of what is broken and what to fix first.
Why you should care: it is the cheapest way to find out why users leave before you spend on a redesign. Typical Saudi cost: SAR 12,000–70,000 depending on scope. Full pricing breakdown.
What is usability testing?
Watching real people from your target market try to complete tasks in your product while a researcher observes and asks questions. Five to eight users per round is usually enough to surface the big problems.
Why you should care: this is the only method that shows you what users actually do, as opposed to what experts assume. A Riyadh banking app we audited had a transfer flow the team loved; the first three test participants all failed the same step.
What is heuristic evaluation?
An expert checks your interface against ten established usability principles, the Nielsen Norman Group heuristics, such as "show system status" and "help users recover from errors." Fast and inexpensive.
Why you should care: it is a good first pass, but remember it is one expert's judgment. Budget SAR 5,000–10,000 in the Saudi market, and do not mistake it for user evidence.
What is the difference between UX and UI?
UI is what the product looks like: colors, typography, buttons. UX is how the product works: whether users can find things, finish tasks, and trust what is happening. A beautiful app that confuses people has good UI and bad UX.
Why you should care: when a vendor quotes you for "UI/UX design," ask how much of the price is research and testing. If the answer is none, you are buying decoration.
What is a design system?
A shared library of reusable components, buttons, forms, cards, with rules for how they look and behave. Your team builds once and reuses everywhere.
Why you should care: without one, every new screen is built from scratch and your product slowly turns inconsistent. With one, design and development both move faster. Worth the investment once you have more than one designer or a growing product.
What is UX writing (microcopy)?
The words inside the interface: button labels, error messages, form instructions, empty states. Small text, outsized impact.
Why you should care: "Something went wrong" tells the user nothing. "Payment failed. Your card was not charged. Try again or use another card" saves the sale. In bilingual GCC products, bad Arabic microcopy quietly kills trust.
What is a user journey map?
A diagram of every step a user takes to reach a goal, from first hearing about you to completing the task, with what they think, feel, and struggle with at each step.
Why you should care: it forces your team to see the product as users experience it, end to end, instead of screen by screen. Most internal arguments about priorities dissolve in front of a journey map with real data on it.
What is a wireframe vs a prototype?
A wireframe is a low-detail layout sketch: structure without styling. A prototype is a clickable simulation of the product that users can actually try.
Why you should care: wireframes are for agreeing on structure cheaply. Prototypes are for testing before you pay engineers to build. If a vendor jumps straight to polished screens, ask what you are paying to find out later.
What is A/B testing?
Showing two versions of a page to different users and measuring which performs better on a chosen metric.
Why you should care: it settles opinion debates with data, but only when you have enough traffic. Under a few thousand weekly users, qualitative testing gives you better answers faster.
The terms worth knowing in vendor proposals
The following terms show up constantly in proposals and design reviews. You do not need to master them. You need to recognize when they are being used to justify cost.
Information architecture
How content and features are organized and labeled so users can find things. Why care: most "users can't find X" problems are IA problems, and the fix is restructuring menus, not repainting screens.
Onboarding flow
The first-run experience that turns a new signup into an active user. Why care: this is where most products lose the most users, and where audits most often pay for themselves.
Friction
Anything that slows or stops a user: extra steps, confusing labels, slow loads. Why care: friction is the enemy your audit is hunting. Every removed step compounds.
Conversion funnel
The sequence of steps from visitor to customer, measured by where people drop off. Why care: your analytics already have this data. A good audit starts by reading it.
Accessibility (WCAG)
Designing so people with disabilities can use your product, measured against the W3C's WCAG 2.2 standard. Why care: Saudi government procurement increasingly requires it, and it improves the product for everyone.
RTL design
Designing interfaces that work right-to-left for Arabic: mirrored layouts, correct icon direction, Arabic typography. Why care: a translated LTR interface is instantly obvious to Saudi users and reads as low effort.
Design sprint
A compressed process (typically one to two weeks) to define a problem, design a solution, and test a prototype. Why care: it is the fastest way to de-risk a big idea before committing a build budget.
MVP
Minimum viable product: the smallest version that tests your core assumption with real users. Why care: scope creep kills more startups than competition does.
Heatmap
A visual overlay showing where users click, tap, and scroll on a page. Why care: great for spotting ignored buttons and content nobody reaches; useless for explaining why.
Session recording
Replay videos of real user sessions on your product. Why care: the cheapest form of user evidence available. Watch ten recordings before your next redesign meeting.
NPS
Net Promoter Score: the "how likely are you to recommend us" 0–10 survey. Why care: useful as a trend line, dangerous as a target. A rising NPS with falling retention means you are measuring the wrong thing.
Task success rate
The percentage of test participants who complete a given task. Why care: the single most honest metric in UX. "Can users complete checkout?" has a number, not an opinion.
Time on task
How long users take to complete something. Why care: for flows users repeat daily, seconds saved are real money and real satisfaction.
Cognitive load
How much mental effort a screen demands. Why care: every choice, alert, and badge adds load. Interfaces that feel "calm" are engineered that way.
Affordance
Whether something looks like what it does: a button that looks tappable, a slider that looks draggable. Why care: when users miss features entirely, the affordance failed. No tooltip fixes that.
Empty state
What a screen shows when there is nothing in it yet: no orders, no messages, no data. Why care: empty states are your onboarding's second act. "No orders yet" plus a dead end loses the user; the same screen with a clear next action keeps them.
Error state
What the interface says when something fails. Why care: error messages are where trust is won or lost, especially at payment. "Error 5002" is not a message; it is an exit door.
Breadcrumb
The trail showing where the user is: Home > Category > Product. Why care: essential for deep sites and e-commerce; nearly free to implement.
Progressive disclosure
Revealing complexity gradually: show the essentials first, details on demand. Why care: it is how you serve beginners and experts with the same interface.
Dark pattern
Interface tricks that push users into things they did not intend: hidden fees, guilt-button popups, hard-to-cancel subscriptions. Why care: short-term conversion, long-term reputation. Saudi regulators and users both notice.
Use this in your next vendor meeting
Confused by a proposal you received? Paste it to us at tremoloo.com/contact-us. We will translate it into plain language and tell you whether the price fits the work. Fifteen minutes of translation can save you a five-figure misunderstanding.
