Glossary
Speaking the same language
Words we use to define words we use.
A
Accessibility friction
Content or functionality does not work correctly with the participant's assistive technology, input method, or accessibility settings — or fails to meet basic accessibility requirements. Often forces participants to find workarounds, seek external help, or abandon the task.
Accessibility score
A 0–100 measure of whether participants can perceive, navigate, and access the critical information they need to make a decision or complete a task — independently. Driven primarily by Accessibility friction and the critical-information subset of Comprehension friction.
B
C
Component Blocker
The participant can't interact with a specific element within a task, but completes the task via a workaround. They aren't blocked at the task level. Our model looks at the severity of the friction and modifies the task score downwards based on various factors.
Comprehension friction
Participant cannot understand the meaning of content due to jargon, unclear language, complex terminology, or poorly written text.
Confidence friction
Participant understands the content but feels uncertain about what to do next, whether their action is correct, what will happen if they proceed, or where to find what they need. Includes wayfinding uncertainty and unclear site functionality.
Confidence rating
A 0.0–1.0 score the model assigns to each friction insight, used as a multiplier on its weight. A high-confidence severe friction (0.9) carries substantially more weight than a low-confidence one (0.4). Below the minimum threshold (currently 0.7), a finding is logged but doesn't affect the score.
Content not found
Participant cannot locate information they need to make a decision or complete a task — either because it doesn't exist, is hidden, or is placed somewhere they wouldn't think to look.
D
E
Empirical model
A scoring approach grounded in what participants actually experienced, not in a statistically-sampled population study. Sample sizes are smaller; the goal is qualitative depth, not quantitative generalisation. A score of 73 isn't telling you '73% of users will succeed' — it's describing the pattern of experience observed.
Excessive effort
Task requires more steps, clicks, time, or cognitive effort than reasonably expected. The friction isn't about comprehension or uncertainty — it's simply too much work to accomplish something straightforward.
H
L
M
P
Positive severity
Participant was impressed or delighted by an interaction.
Project-level outcome
The participant's overall goal for the session — the headline outcome the project was designed around (e.g. "open a bank account", "buy a policy"). Distinguished from task-level outcomes, which are the component steps along the way.
Project-level score
The headline accessibility and usability scores for the whole project, surfaced at the top of the client dashboard. If a participant is blocked at a project-level dependency, their project score reflects that — it can drop to zero for that participant.
S
T
Task Blocker
The participant is categorically blocked from completing one task, even though they can still use the rest of the experience. Regardless of how they scored that task, our model takes its accessibility score for just that task to 0. Their scores for other tasks are unaffected.
Task-level outcome
A component step toward the project-level outcome (e.g. "complete the date picker", "submit the form"). A participant can achieve the project goal while still being blocked at task level along the way — both states matter to the score.
Task-level score
One accessibility score and one usability score for a specific task or component we test (e.g. login, checkout, form completion). Each task gets its own pair of scores, calculated only from participants who actually attempted that task.
U
Unexpected behaviour
Interface responds in a way the participant did not anticipate based on the design, labels, or their prior experience.
Unresponsive interface
Participant takes an action but the interface doesn't respond as expected, responds slowly, or provides no feedback that anything happened.
Usability score
A 0–100 measure of whether participants experienced the product as seamless, intuitive, and efficient. Driven by Confidence, Unresponsive interface, Unexpected behaviour, Content not found, Excessive effort, and the non-critical subset of Comprehension friction. A late-stage survey-sentiment calibration nudges this score; the accessibility score is never modified by sentiment.