1. Voice of the customer is a market research technique that produces a detailed set of customer wants and needs, organized into a hierarchical structure, and then prioritized in terms of relative importance and satisfaction with current alternatives.

2. a different version of a product or design, developed in order to see what will receive the best response from customers.

3. The number of users who achieved a specific goal divided by the total number of visitors. Often measured for a specific call-to-action, signup form, or other intended goal.

4. the critical aspect of the experiment the user must view in order to measure reaction. If the stimulus or test criteria is buried too deep within the mockup or is too hard to find, the user may not know what they are supposed to be reacting to.

5. not to be confused with sales, marketing, or customer support, customer development is the process of gaining customer insights through surveys and in-person interviews.

6. an organization that helps startups and entrepreneurs to grow by providing services such as training and office space.

7. Data derived from behavior reflects unconscious or unintentional biases that may be excluded when a tester is asked to self-report their experience using a mockup, prototype or product.

8. how likely user is to recommend the product to a friend. This is considered to be a good indication of how valuable they find the product.

9. Agile product management is based on gathering customer and user feedback on prototypes and early product developments, and adapting accordingly. It helps product teams reduce waste through iterative work cadences.

10. A single page website, emblematic of a larger product. Landing pages are occasionally used to scaffold prototypes or mockups for the sake of providing the user with extra context, or to test value propositions before building a product.

11. unique selling proposition - the main reason why a user chooses one product over another.

12. a method within Agile where a development team works together to reach a goal, often with physical co-location or close online collaboration of all team members, as well as daily face-to-face communication among all team members. There are hundreds of Agile and Scrum tools out there, many of which may sound familiar.

13. A survey pattern used against large, roughly equal groups of cohorts that measures perception of value of two slightly different concepts.

14. the user's entire experience from initiating the mockup, prototype, or product to closing it and returning to their life.

15. a user test with no interaction between the test team and the user. Results in video clips of the user's screen, audio recording of the user's voice, and is often tabulated with other user tests to generate quantitative insights.

16. user interface - the visual dimension of any given product or service, as the user connects to it. UI designers determine how information and features are laid out visually within the greater product.

17. a simulation of functionality or design meant to put testers in the proper mindset to answer questions through behavior rather than self-reporting. Prototypes are the means by which experiments generate actionable data and provide a framework by which product managers can evaluate and benchmark new product features iteratively. Many tools have been developed to make prototyping accessible to product managers.

18. a qualitative data gathering session that makes use of live interaction to follow-up on outlying responses and paint a fuller picture of the user's experience using the product. Check out Mind The Product for some great user testing tools.

19. Typically done just prior to launch, to improve the quality of the product, integrate customer input on the complete product, and ensure launch readiness.

20. user experience - how a user feels when interfacing with a product. UX designers study and evaluate how users feels by looking at such things as ease of use, perception of the value of the system, utility, and efficiency in performing tasks. Check out uxisnotui.com for a direct comparison of the two.

21. A tactic used to quickly gather user insights. Surveys, landing page split tests, and interviews are examples of experiments.

22. A group of people who fit a specific user criteria, used for surveys, interviews, and prototype testing.

23. minimum viable product - A core component of Lean, an MVP is a stripped down version of a product launched quickly in order to gather user feedback earlier in the product lifecycle. Large companies are beginning to use 'MVEs' instead of MVPs.

24. a customer-focused, prototype-driven process for innovation. Tim Brown of IDEO describes design thinking as 'a discipline that uses the designer's sensibility and methods to match people's needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity.'

25. Typically started within a large company, an innovation lab is a small team of employees tasked with building new products and businesses.