User Experience Euphemisms

It’s funny that the UX industry preaches plain english and transparency to our clients, yet so much of our documentation is riddled with jargon and euphemisms. Perhaps someone should put together a crib sheet?

“The deliverable will be a high level overview…”
– It’s gonna be vague.

“…very high level…”
– It’s gonna be incredibly vague.

“There are numerous opportunities for improvement”
– Your UI is a car crash but we’d prefer not to offend you until the contract’s signed.

“We’ve identified some low hanging fruit…”
– You’ve made some huge design mistakes. We could tell you how to fix them right now, but you’re more likely to listen to us after you’ve paid us five or six figures.

“Cognitive load”
– It’s just plain confusing.

“Our consultants have a background in Psychology”
– They’ll keep saying ‘cognitive load’ over and over again.

“Poor visual hierarchy”
– The page is a cluttered mess.

“Enhance the call to action”
– Make that button bigger.

“Most users had difficulty completing this task.”
– The intern didn’t write down exactly how many people it happened to… But that doesn’t matter because it’s a high level report, right?

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