Key Concepts - UX Terminology

⚠️ This is a living document — more definitions may be added as the project evolves.

Existing User Group Mechanisms

Reference

User Groups

User groups are sets of users grouped by shared characteristics, events, or rules. They can be created manually or automatically using data such as course progress, profile info, or activity. Unlike legacy models, user groups in this system are agnostic of behavior, meaning any group can be used for messaging, content control, analytics, or other features without being tied to a specific function like "cohorts" or "teams". This unified design supports reuse and flexibility across the platform.

Scope

 The context in which a user group is valid and active.

Types:

• Course: group applies only within a specific course.

• Organization: group applies across all courses in an organization.

• Instance: group is global across the platform.

Criteria

A criterion defines who should be included in a user group based on what users are like (their characteristics) or what they do (or don't do) on the platform.

It represents a condition that helps select a specific group of users, such as learners who haven't logged in for 10 days or who have course progress below 40%.

Groups can include up to three criteria, combined with AND/OR operators. Only users who satisfy the resulting rule will be included in the group.

Breaking Down a Criterion

Each criterion defines a rule for selecting users based on what they do (or don’t do) within a scope. It follows a simple structure made of four key parts:

• Subject: Who or what is being evaluated. Q: Can this be something different than the user? Can this be implicit to the criteria, e.g., last login depends on user info?

  • It’s always the user

• Attribute / Property / Criteria Type ??: The specific behavior or characteristic being checked

• Operator: How the attribute is compared to a value (e.g., equals, greater than, exists)

• Value (Optional, depends on operator): The specific number, label, or item used in the comparison

Examples

Here are some examples of how real criteria follow this pattern:

• User has not engaged with any course content in N or more days

• User has engaged with a specific part of the course

• User got a problem correct on first or any attempt

• User created a forum post

• User earned a grade above or below a threshold on an assignment

Evaluators

Evaluators are responsible for implementing the logic that determines whether a user meets the conditions defined by a Criterion to belong to a group.

Each evaluator is directly associated with a specific criterion and dynamically resolves group membership by applying the criterion's logic to the user's data.

In essence, evaluators are the execution engine behind grouping rules, ensuring user assignment to groups is accurate and consistent according to the defined conditions.

Anti-Criterion

An anti-criterion is the opposite of a regular criterion. It selects users who do not meet a specific condition.

For example:

• Criterion: learners who scored below 50%

• Anti-criterion: learners who did not score below 50% (i.e., they scored 50% or more)

Anti-criteria can be used to exclude certain users from a group based on the inverse of an existing rule.

Group Modes: Dynamic vs Static Groups

• Dynamic Group: Users are added or removed automatically when their data changes. For example, if the group is “learners who failed the course” and one learner passes later, the system removes them from the group. To stay up to date, these groups need to be refreshed, either manually (e.g., by pressing a button), by a cron job, or by receiving event updates.

• Static Group: Users are selected manually and added to the group by the course team.

UX Terminology Table – With Alternatives & Tooltips