Product Sense & Empathy
What is Recognition vs Recall?
It is far easier to recognize an option that is shown than to recall one from memory, which is why menus beat blank command lines for most people.
Go deeper
Read the full deep-dive that explains Recognition vs Recall in context - with examples, mechanics, and where it breaks.
Related terms
- Product Sense The skill of judging what to build and why it matters to a real person - choosing the right thing to make, not just making things well.
- User Empathy The ability to see and feel a product from the user's point of view - their goal, their confusion, their fear - instead of your own expert perspective.
- Jobs To Be Done The idea that people "hire" a product to make progress in their lives; nobody wants a drill, they want the hole - so design for the goal, not the feature.
- Mental Model The picture in a user's head of how something works; software feels obvious when it matches that picture and confusing when it fights it.
- Affordance What an object lets you do - a button affords pressing, a slider affords dragging. It is the action the thing makes possible.
- Signifier The visible cue that tells you an affordance exists - the underline that says "link," the raised edge that says "press me." Without it, a feature is effectively hidden.