Definitions for standard terms

Question

I am working on creating documentation for the tool we built at work and had two main thoughts :

1. Is there like an industry standard glossary with regard to getting definitions to various terms?

2. More specifically, Are Usage and Capability commonly used UX terms in documentation? I am currently assuming, Usage would mean how our consumer uses the tool and Capability would mean the ability of the tool to perform meaningful action. Do they sound right and acceptable ?

Can someone guide me to a more formal approach to creating standardized definitions to terms?

Answer 1

Usage could be acceptable, I would also consider user-interaction´ or evenusability´.

As for capability what do you mean with a meaningful action? if you mean that a control behaves as its appearance suggests you could be talking about affordance too. Or Effective: Measure or description of how accurately a goal can be accomplished.

I would recommend these websites to get familiar with the most common terms for UX. - https://www.usability.gov/what-and-why/glossary/tag/interaction-design/index.html - https://www.usability.gov/what-and-why/user-experience.html

You could always use other terms you like as long as you explain the context within your documentation.

Answer 2

Language is relative

The language in your docs depends on the intended audience. If it makes sense to them, then it makes sense. You might use the technically correct term, but if it isn't immediately clear to your readers it doesn't matter.