We've listed all the terms and definitions that you'll want to know about digital products.

A/B tests are basically split tests with a control element and its variation. Almost everything measurable can be tested in a digital product, UI elements to call to action. It depends on the idea of measuring the performances of 2 variations to decide which one is better.

Agile is a software development methodology that focuses on communication and feedback throughout the development process. It also emphasizes working software over comprehensive documentation, and each iteration that a team makes to its product is seen as an opportunity to perfect it. Agile continues to grow in popularity, and its focus on communication with users directly benefits digital products.

Alt text stands for alternative text. It is a descriptive sentence to explain a visual since around 1995. Alt texts are important for the accessibility of the product before anything else, since they make screen readers explain a visual. They also have improvement potential for overall UX and SEO.

API means application programming interface, which makes different technologies communicate. API stands for an application programming interface. They make it possible to talk about different technologies to each other. An API allows the sharing of data or functions of a digital product with another digital product. They provide a clearly defined interface to enable various components of larger applications to work together, and they can reduce the amount of code that is required. In other words, they serve as bridges between your components, even if they were developed by different companies.

The term "back end" refers to a system's data access layer. It is a section that the end user does not have direct access to. The backend is known as the "data access layer," while the frontend is known as the "display layer."

The use of behavioral science and human psychology in product design is referred to as behavioral product management. It is presumptively assumed that humans are illogical, and that there are certain behavioral patterns that can aid in increasing both user experience and conversion rates.

Benchmarking is a method to compare a product, brand or a market to the others. Benchmarking provides data and insight for a product in comprasion with other actors. In product development, benchmarking generally used for understand market by analyzing competitors.

In analytics, a bounce refers to a single page session. Bounce rate is the percentage of single views on a specific page. The lower the bounce rate is the better. A low bounce rate shows how successfully your visitors were interacted with pages.

A browser is a web-based program that gives you access to and interaction with the internet. It is a decent way to interact with all the information on the Web. Google Chrome, Safari, Mozilla Firefox, Opera are few of browsers. There are too many options out there, including even Microsoft Edge!

A bug in computer technology refers a mistake. It is described as an error, mistake, or fault in the design, development, or operation of computer tech. A bug can cause crash or an unwilling user action. There is no limit when it comes to bugs.

Build measure learn cycle (a.k.a BML loops) is a method in iterative product development, coined by Eric Ries in the book Lean Startup. A product should be developed in build-measure-learn (BML) loops to reach the product market fit quickly and effectively. The method's main idea is to build an MVP first, then have enough users use it, get feedback from them, measure, analyze learnings, and then build again with your learnings in mind. Continue doing so until you see the product market fit.

Cache refers the storage that gathers temporary data. Cache can be used to speed up the loading of webpages, browsers, and applications, to improve onboarding, and to remember your shopping cart contents. A cache could be found on any computer, laptop, or phone, in any online browser or app.

A case study is a method of organizing knowledge regarding a specific subject. It is a study about a case that aims to explain know-how. The phrase "case study" is used in a variety of contexts depending on the field. Case studies in medical, for example, may focus on a specific patient or condition, whereas case studies in business may cover a specific business' strategy or a spesific market.

Churn rate indicates how many of your customers stop paying you and no longer do business with you over a certain period of time. It's calculated by dividing the number of customers who stopped doing business with your company during a certain time period by the total number of customers in the same period. At first glance, “churn rate” sounds straightforward enough. But the reasons behind its increase are not as simple when dissected and analyzed. Understanding why customers are leaving can help you determine how to stop this from happening altogether.

Clean code is a term that gets thrown around a lot in the software development community. The most common definition of clean code is code that is simple to read and change. The goal of Clean Code is to make the act of maintenance transparent, so that programmers can focus on building new features rather than spending time debugging old ones.

Conversion is a digital product term that refers to desired actions users took. Conversion rate, on the other hand, is a metric to measure conversions. It is calculated by simply splitting the number of all traffic into a number of the desired action.

A cookie is a unique value stored on your browser assigned by websites you visit. Cookies can track your visits and collect data from your browser. There are different types of cookies as session, authentication, tracking, etc.

Cookie policy is the text that websites inform users about the existence, purpose and usage of cookies. Cookie policies shown in some cases due to legal obligations and in some cases ethical concerns after increasing security discussion.

CRO stands for conversion rate optimization. It includes all efforts aimed to increase the conversion rate of a product, ad, creative, website, online shop, mobile app, etc.

CAC is short for customer acquisition cost. It's a metric to measure the average marketing cost of acquiring a customer. To calculate CAC the total amount marketing spendings (direct and indirect) are devided by acquired customers in a certain amount of time. CAC = Marketing Costs / Acquired Customers

Cusromer effort score (CES) is a single number that summarizes the quality of customer experience of an ogranization. CES measures the effort required for a customer to make an interaction that leads a conversion (purchase,subscription etc.) or gets a request fulfilled. Users are asked to grade their experience over a likert scale -or a similar system- right after their interaction. Total score devided by total number of surveys makes the CES. It provides a holistic benchmark for measuring effectiveness of your product.

Customer lifetime value (CLV) is the total income a business can expect from an average customer for as long as that person or account remains as a customer. It is important to track CLV because it impacts your revenue thus your marketing and product strategy. To calculate customer lifetime value, multiply a customers value (average purchase * no. of purchases) with customer lifetime. CLV = Customer Value * Customer Life Time

CX stands for customer experience. Customer experience is about everything the customer interacts with products, services or the brand, not just the digital interactions in UX.

DAU is a metric used to measure a digital product's user interaction with its product or service. DAU measures how many unique users visit a product on a daily basis. It is one of the metrics that is used to measure the success of a product. The higher the DAU, the more “sticky” your app/website is viewed as being by potential users. In order to calculate DAU, you first need to define a user and then determine what type of activity they're engaging in (consumption or engagement).

Design thinking is a relatively old methodology for designing. Design thinking gives a framework to solve the problems of users. In design thinking, there are steps to follow: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test.

Empathy mapping is a strategy for increasing user experience by understand them. There are numerous empathy mapping approaches, but some general characteristics include asking the user what they are doing, seeing, hearing, thinking, and feeling.

Figma is a web-based design application that enables collaborative work. Since it is also a cloud-based tool, you may use it from anywhere and with nearly any browser or device. Because it is an online tool, you and your team may all join in and make changes to the same design at the same time.

The Five-second test is a user research method. It is a simple test aimed to get new insights into a product’s usability. After participants took a look at the product for 5 seconds, they asked simple questions. It’s good for understanding the first impression of the design.

A flowchart is an easy-to-understand, visually presented diagram depicting the overall process. You will find that a flowchart is often used in business, science, and information technology-related activities, but they are equally useful for administrative processes. A flowchart will be of great use to you if you are the kind of person who likes visual solutions to problems.

Front end is where users see in any type of digital product from computer programs to websites. Front-end web development, also known as client-side development, is the activity of creating HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for a website or Web Application so that a user can directly see and interact with them.

Geofencing stands for building virtual fences, imaginary boundaries on a map to set alerts. It simply determines a device’s location. It can be used for advanced location-based services.

The graphics interchange format (GIF) is a sort of bitmap picture format established by CompuServe in 1987. The format allows up to 8 bits per pixel, giving a picture access to a 255-color palette. The greatest distinguishing feature of GIF is its support for animation, with each frame allowing for the usage of a new palette.

Growth hacking is a relatively new marketing subfield generally used by tech-driven companies. Growth hacking focuses on ways to grow as a whole instead of just leads and acquisitions. Growth hackers use pirate funnels which occur through steps of awareness, acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, and referral.

A hackathon is a short-term event held by a tech company or organization in which programmers collaborate on a project. Because challenges are often only 24 hours long or happen for a weekend, participants must work rapidly and frequently without sleep to finish their tasks.

Hardware refers to the physical tools and mechanical equipment used in the development and use of your product. This could comprise the physical components of a computer as well as the tools required to use it, such as a keyboard, monitor, and mouse.

The term headless CMS has been widely used in recent years. It has had a significant impact on both developers and content creators by making content delivery much simpler. A headless CMS is decoupled from the presentation layer or frontend, which is referred to as the "head." The backend is the content management system, known as the "body."

An in-app purchase is simply a purchase completed within an app. The four categories of in-app purchases are as follows: Auto-renewable subscriptions Nonrenewing subscriptions Consumable Non-consumable

Software integration is the process of combining diverse software programs or pieces into a single system. The degree of integration can range from merging very small components to larger, more complicated systems.

Jamstack is an acronym that stands for JavaScript, API, and Markup. Web apps employ the programming language JavaScript. An API is a method of requesting data from another computer or application. Markup is code that gives browsers formatting instructions.

JavaScript is a scripting language that allows you to generate dynamically updating information, manipulate multimedia, animate graphics, and do a lot more.

A job title is a precise identification of a position within an organization, which is usually accompanied with a job description that outlines the activities and responsibilities connected with it.

K-Factor is a metric that measures how effectively an app attracts new users. It is used to describe your app’s virality or how much improvement it has on driving engagement for each existing user. K-Factor defines how popular your product is, by comparing it to the average number of people who install and use it.

Kanban is an organizing method that generally divides workload into columns as to do, doing, done. It is a dynamic method invented to help teams more efficiently complete their work. Rather than only doing a bit of work at a time, every column gives the team an idea of how much work is being accomplished at any given moment. This is best practice because it creates an awareness of how much work is being completed.

A landing page is the page users see first after clicking a link. Landing pages can be used for an ad that aims to increase conversions, as well as to measure a product idea.

Lazy loading is an optimization strategy for online content, including websites and web applications. It helps in loading only the necessary piece and delaying the loading of the remaining content till the user needs it. Especially for mobile devices, it is very beneficial as the process is optimized for their small screen and limited bandwidth.

Lean is a methodology for product development. It aims to maximize efficiency by eliminating waste of all kinds. With the inspiration of Toyota’s production framework; developers and entrepreneurs built different approaches to different systems. They all basically stand on the idea of developing the best possible product with given sources.

Lean startup approach provides a set of tools and methods for both small and large teams, as well as R&D departments. The lean startup approach is coined by Eric Ries, the method aplies lean manufacturing principles to the new digital product development processes. He simply asked the question: "How to use lean manufacturing benefits if there is no product exist yet?". Thus, lean startup approach suggests an itterative way of working for all stages of new product development from idea to launch.

Lorem Ipsum is a well-known dummy text that is preferred over writing "a text will be here." There are various claims about the roots of the lorem ipsum text. Some argue it was generated by a publisher in the 1500s by blending all letters in the alphabet, while others claim it is a genuine Cicero paragraph from "Finibus Bonorum et Malorum"

Microservices express an architectural style. Generally, a microservice functions as a part of a bigger application. Microservices make it easy to build scalable applications that not only have fewer bugs but are also easier to maintain. Using microservice architecture manages collaborations and divides complex projects. It’s a pattern that has been used in some form since the mid-90s.

Mood board is a kind of collage to present ideas by using visuals, texts, colors, etc. A mood board can be used to convey a broad concept or feeling about a specific topic. They can be physical or digital and are useful presentation tools.

MVP stands for a minimum viable product. It is basically a small version of a bigger idea. With an MVP, it’s possible to see if the idea is profitable or not, start generating leads, build a community, learn about the processes, and more.

The term navigation map can be used to describe certain attributes of a route instruction. A navigation map can also be described as a diagram that depicts the structure and organization of interconnected documents.

This metric gives a general idea of how many paying customers your product has. It basically shows you how many actual paying customers have paid for your product, which can be helpful in gauging success and growth.

Introducing a product or service to users or customers is known as product onboarding. Onboarding is an essential part of the product adoption process. It enables people to become familiar with a product's features, as well as how to use it.

Open source refers to something that others can update and share. In the context of software development, the term was used to designate a certain way of creating computer programs. Open-source software is a prime example of open collaboration, where any capable user can engage in development online, increasing the number of potential contributors indefinitely.

A pageview (or pageview hit, page tracking hit) is the behavior of loading (or reloading) a page in a browser. The total number of pages viewed is defined as pageviews. It is a widely used metric in web analytics and digital product analytics.

Perception of value explains customer satisfaction with a product or service. It mostly depends on expectations, affordance, and aesthetics. A product's perceived value is an estimation of the value that customers suppose they are obtaining.

Persona is the visual and detailed presentation of a product’s or service’s target audiences or users. By creating personas, we are able to understand whom we are building, designing, writing, and developing for. From UX design to marketing, personas are important for all of us.

Pivot is a major change made within the products core features or value proposition to find a better product-market fit. When a product is pivoted, it means the product has changed drastically after launch based on the feedback received from users and other stakeholders. Unlike physical products, digital products are available to update after launch. So a pivot is an important aspect in digital product development to reach a product market fit.

The term pixel is derived from the word pix (from photographs) and the word el (for element). A pixel is commonly regarded as the tiniest single component of a computer image.

Pre launch signups is the number of people who signed up for your new product, service or event before it is launched. This can be a great way to estimate the success of your product or service.

Product requirement document, aka PRD, is the ultimate document includes all neccessary information about a product or a specific release of it. The main focus is creating a self explanatory document. A well written PRD makes a product live independent from it's creators and enables shareholders.

Prototypes are early examples of what you’re designing or building. They are created for getting feedback from the customer to ensure you two are on the same page about the product.

QR codes are two-dimensional symbols that most of the cameras can scan. Nowadays, the majority of phones and PCs are equipped by default with a QR code feature. Color codes enable the same physical space to convey more information by employing color in any pattern or design that attracts attention, such as a logo. When users capture a color or black-and-white image, the device decodes it and launches the device's browser to link to the URL included in the code.

If a lead generation strategy has been tried and proven before, an organization or individual with interest in a product, campaign, company concept, etc. means quality lead. To express interest, contact information, including an email address, a phone number, or even a social network account, is given. It's just lead if you don't know whether the lead generation method will clinch the deal or not.

A query is a particular request for data from a database. Queries, in particular in sophisticated database systems, make it simpler to discern patterns at a high level or make large-scale changes to data.

Retention rate means active user ratio of an app or page for start and end of a given time frame. It is one of the most valuable metrics of a digital product because decreases in retention show that users are not coming back to use your application. Further decreases will mean fewer users and therefore less revenue for your company. On the other side, increases in retention show that there are more loyal users who will generate more revenue for you.There are multiple ways to increase user retention, including making your onboarding process more effective, decreasing barriers to engagement and support, improving the actual experience of your product, etc.

Revenue is a measurement of your business's ability to make money. Having revenue is almost always the primary goal of any business, as it's what provides the cash that a business can use to operate, grow and scale Always keep in mind that revenue itself is not enough though, it needs to be converted into profit if you want to be successful.

RICE is a prioritizing framework for product management that stands for reach, impact, confidence, and effort. RICE helps us to focus on what matters most in a manageable way. When prioritizing something, we need to consider our reach, which is how many people are going to bear the consequences of our work. We must evaluate the impact which is how big of an impact is this task going to have.

Scaleups, can be defined as a growed startup. Yet, not necessarily. These are businesses that have grown more than 20% each year in terms of employee numbers during the last 3 financial years. Scaleups are continually looking to expand into new areas and have scalable business models. The most notable difference between a startup and a scaleup is the sense of certainty in the return on investment (ROI).

Scrollytelling is a technique that benefits from scrolling behavior to tell long-form stories. The word is generated by mixing scrolling and storytelling. Changes in elements are triggered by user behavior in this framework. Every component is connected to the others or scrolling behavior.

Scrum is a framework for iterative and incremental product development that is based on the step-by-step refinement of an annual plan, created using iterations that last between one and four weeks. This method focuses on creating adaptability within your team so they can react to change while still following the general plan.

A server in computing is a computer, device, or application that is dedicated to managing network resources. They are named as "server" since their job is serving another computer, device, or application. The other computer, devise or app is known as a client to whom they give functionality.

A sitemap is a file that provides information on the pages, videos, and other assets on your site, as well as the relationships between them. Sitemaps can also include information such as when a page was last updated, how frequently the page is edited, and how relevant the page is.

The term "social media engagement rate" is often used to describe the average number of interactions (likes, comments, shares etc.) received for every 100 views on a post. In other words, it's a percentage score that measures how engaged is your social media content.

Soft launch is a way to launch a product to real users without marketing, growth hacking or other expanding ways. Soft launch provides pre-launch data and insight which can used to fix problems or improve product before the real launch.

Spam is any type of undesired, uninvited digital communication that is transmitted in large quantities. Spam messages frequently delivered by email, but it can also be delivered via text messages, phone calls, or social media. Spam can also be referred to as junk email or electronic spam. Actually, spam is a sort of meat; the term spamming originated from a journalist's experience at a café where the server explained the menu by repeating "spam" too many times.

Sprints are used by scrum teams to keep track of progress on a project. Sprint planning is a critical step along the way to delivering better products through agile, and it's one that informs every other part of the process. At the end of each sprint, the team should be able to show that they've made significant progress.

Startup as a service is an umbrella term for services that help startups manage their business processes. The service may be used for anything a startup might need, from idea testing to creating a fundraising roadmap or building an MVP.

How frequently consumers return to your product and take action is referred to as a product's stickiness. Stickiness is what keeps them logging in, coming back, and telling their friends. All these proactive users result in improved retention rates, increased sales, and eventually a stronger brand image.

A storyboard is a graphic or drawen version of a project that divides the action into sections. It can be for a movie, video, animation, comics, and more. It consists of a series of arranged drawings with perspective, speech, or other relevant information. It illustrates how a video will play out, shot by shot.

Technical debt is a catch-all category that includes everything from bugs to legacy code to missing documentation. It occurs when speed is more important than perfectness.

In web, traffic is the number of visitors to a website over a given period of time. One of the most important metrics for a website is web traffic. The number of visitors to a website is a good measure of how appealing it is to your target audience. Direct, referral and search traffics are the three most common traffic sources.

Trello is a visual project management, workflow, and task tracking application that your team can use to manage any form of project, workflow, or task tracking. Files, checklists, and even automation can be added: Customize everything to fit the way your team works best.

The discipline of arranging letters and text in such a way that the content is legible, clear, and visually appealing to the reader is known as typography.

UI is the user interface, which allows users to interact with a system. The most important thing for a UI designer is to make the user's interaction with the system convenient, without any misunderstanding and mistakes. There must be concise prompts, messages, and icons to help users operate the interface.

Usability is a UX and UI term to express how usable a product is. It’s important to differentiate usability from the ease of use. Usability includes learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction.

User flows are critical to the design process. They represent the desired flow of a user through a site and are used to protect against overly complex interfaces, at the very minimum. They are the fastest way of visualizing users’ processes and understanding their needs.

User journey maps are a visual representation of how the user interacts with the design from the designer's point of view. The designer may become so engrossed in his job that he loses sight of his ultimate goal: to assist consumers with their requirements. It enables him to describe the defects, how they may be improved, and what could be done to correct them. It promotes the notion that interactivity is an important aspect of design.

User research is a research focused on understanding users of a product, market or problem. It includes different methods and data gathering ways to develop empathy with users.

USP stands for unique selling propositions; which explains why someone buys your product or service instead of competitors. A unique selling proposition can be something digital or something that should be expressed well in digital. Both ways, it’s important to understand the unique selling proposition of something for digital product efforts.

UX refers to user experience. User experience focuses on the user's perception of the system while UI mostly focuses on aesthetic elements of a product or system. User experiences are designed by UX designers with the aim of easiness, efficiency, usability, and so on.

Validated learning entails gathering data to prove an idea before proceed to the next step. For a digital product, starting with a minimum viable product is a great -and most of the time the only- way for validated learning.

Value vs. effort is a popular and effective method for prioritization approach in product development. It's also very intuitive. You estimate the value and effort for each feature, the features are then placed in a value vs effort matrix, and the ones on the sweet spot are prioritized.

Virtual reality (VR) is a virtual experience that simulates reality. VR technologies deliver the experience via 3D high quality audio and visuals. The experience is only possible through spessific devices called VR sets, glasses, lens, and more.

VOC stands for the voice of the customer. It is one of the main concerns in user-centered design and development. VOC basically refers to user feedback and includes understanding the expectations, needs, and pain points of end-users.

The waterfall is a methodology for project management. It is based on finishing every stage before starting the next one. In software development, there are 5 common stages: requirements, design, implementation, verification or testing, deployment & maintenance.

White space simply the space between design elements in a product. It is sometimes referred to as negative or blank space. It refers to everything that isn't content.

Wireframes are pre-structures of a digital product. They are simple black-and-white drafts before any code is written. It is possible to perceive them as sketches. It helps different teams visually communicate with each other. Wireframes are used by user experience and user interface designers to sketch out a visual idea that can be readily adjusted until it's ready to be created and developed

Apple created the MacOS program Xcode for app development. It is the single method of creating iOS and other Apple OS apps that is officially supported.

XD is an abbreviation of user experience design. It also known as UX design, UXD or UED. It is a process that involves building data-driven, evidenced based user interfaces for products or websites.

Year-over-year (YOY) is a method of comparing the outcomes of two measured events in different years on an annualized basis. YOY comparisons are a popular and effective way to assess a company's financial performance.

Zoom is a cloud-based meeting app that popularized in the coronavirus pandemic when remote working was common. You can use zoom for audio conferences and video conferences and both of them.