Glossary from the Loop
Design terms for systems, signals, bodies, and behaviors (Updated as the loop evolves.)
We’re already entangled with our tools.
Signal+Static explores design not just as craft, but as a systemic negotiation between the learned, the speculative, the embodied, and the technological. It believes we are cyborgs, and might need to extend our linguistic apparatus with self-aware terminology.
This glossary is a living document of terms that emerge across essays, field notes, and moments where design meets interface friction. Expect semi-regular updates and redefinitions.
It will evolve. And loop.
Glossary
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Document: signal_static.glossary
Version: 1.6
Status: LIVE
Last-Updated: 2025-11-30T22:07-0500
Author: signal+static
Project: Glossary of Posthuman Terms
Mode: cyborg-lexicon / loop-aware / chrome-stained
Notes: Structure normalized under v1.6. Entries alphabetized per source.
-->Terms from Pilot Mode
Behavioral Intervention
Tags: UX design, friction, intentionality
Any interface that slows the user on purpose, prompting reflection or rerouting behavior. Used with care, it becomes a tool for reorientation. Applied carelessly, it breaks the loop.
Cyborg Design
Tags: posthuman UX, embodiment
Design that operates inside the user’s extended sensory system. Less about novelty, more about syncing with familiar input rhythms and emotional mappings. The designer’s role shifts from toolmaker to nervous system co-architect.
Interface Fluency
Tags: learned behavior, UI literacy
The unspoken language of a system a user already knows. Where each icon lives, how it behaves, what it feels like under pressure. A kind of internalized grammar that emerges through repetition.
Language Drift
Tags: semiotics, design systems
When familiar interface elements are redesigned without honoring their functional ancestry. The result looks fresh, maybe even elegant, but chips away at collective fluency.
Reprogramming
Tags: learning cost, UI adoption
The background tax of learning new patterns. Every novel interaction demands attention, creates latency, rewrites instinct. It can delight, but it always costs.
Situational Compression
Tags: cognition under pressure, interface timing
The shrinking of time and cognitive margin in high-stakes scenarios. Every element must respond at the speed of instinct. The interface either compresses cleanly or breaks under load.
Trained Loop Fidelity
Tags: muscle memory, feedback loops
The embedded rhythm of a user’s feedback-response cycle. Disruption creates lag, even if the new system is technically better. Fidelity means honoring the body’s memory of motion.
Terms from Luke’s Hand: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
Bright Line Fallacy
Tags: human-machine boundary, identity theory
The mistaken belief in a sharp line between humans and machines. Feels clean. Fails under pressure. Experience leaks across the border.
Empathy Prosthesis
Tags: emotional tech, speculative UX
A device or system that simulates, supports, or structures the experience of empathy. Sometimes a gateway. Sometimes a gatekeeper.
Networked Dreaming
Tags: collective identity, machine collaboration
When individual imagination blends with shared systems—social, neural, digital. Identity disperses. Boundaries dissolve. The dream becomes a shared executable.
Prosthetic Removal Paradox
Tags: post-augmentation self, techno-loss
The uncertainty that follows after an extension is taken away. Did the feeling come from you, or the device? What remains when the feed cuts?
Systemic Empathy
Tags: institutional emotion, performative systems
When empathy becomes infrastructure. Measured, scored, enforced. The feeling becomes a metric. The system starts to smile.
Terms from Agents, Cultureware, and the Human Network Behind the Machine Network
Agentic Interface
Tags: AI design, goal-based UX
An interface that reacts to intent rather than dictating a flow. You signal your aim. The system assembles the route. More verb, less map.
Anthropomorphic Trap
Tags: design pitfalls, synthetic personhood
The urge to make AI look and act like us—smiling UIs, chatty voices, synthetic charm. It calms the user but hides the wires. Trust without capability.
Ask > Tap Shift
Tags: interaction shift, inference UX
The move from clicking to asking. From browsing to prompting. Interfaces aren’t waiting to be touched. The interface should anticipate the next request.
Brand Kernel
Tags: brand systems, micro-identity
The smallest possible signal that still carries identity. A color flash. A button feel. A micro-interaction that says: you’re still in the loop.
Cognitive Load-Balancing
Tags: AI-human collaboration, task design
Dividing labor between human and machine minds. The aim is not speed but balance. Offload without off-centering. Share the cognition without dropping the thread.
Culture Drift
Tags: remote work, team dynamics
When the rituals that held a team together dissolve. Usually silent. Often slow. A leak, not a break.
Cultureware
Tags: societal middleware, design ethics
The protocol layer of shared behavior—rituals, defaults, norms—that shape how systems and people evolve together. Not installed. Absorbed.
Design Diplomacy
Tags: hybrid teams, org navigation
The negotiation work designers do in a blur of shifting roles. Mediating overlap, brokering clarity, translating between machines and humans (+ humans and humans, machines and machines).
Entry-Level Paradox
Tags: UX career dynamics, AI acceleration
AI raises the ceiling but erases the floor. Seniors move faster. Juniors vanish. The pipeline eats its own future.
Extension-of-Mind Model
Tags: cyborg theory, augmentation paradigm
A design frame where AI acts as cognitive scaffolding, not a synthetic personality. It extends thought, memory, and decision—without pretending to be someone.
Gaze Interaction
Tags: multimodal UX, attention systems
An input mode based on where and how you look. Paired with gesture or voice, it tracks intent through vision. Eyes as cursors. Attention as input.
Humanity-Centered Design
Tags: design paradigm, systemic thinking
Design for ecosystems, not just users. Moves beyond the individual and into collective outcomes, long arcs, unintended consequences.
Infinite Loop Mode
Tags: systems design, cybernetic UX
A model of operation that never resets. The system is always on, always learning. Linear flows become feedback spirals. You don’t restart. You re-enter.
Machine-Network Stewardship
Tags: leadership ecology, hybrid systems
The act of tending the human network that tends the machines. People maintain code. Code maintains everything else. Stewardship flows both ways.
Social Firmware
Tags: team dynamics, human systems
The quiet layer that keeps groups functioning—trust, cadence, rituals. Unspoken, untracked, irreplaceable. Try to virtualize it and watch it glitch.
Societal Middleware
Tags: cyborg governance, trust design
The etiquette layer between people and autonomous systems (+ people and people, as and as). Rules for robots. Social contracts for agents. Protocols for presence.
System Stewardship
Tags: responsible design, systems UX
Designing not just products, but the systems that produce behavior. Culture is an output. So is harm. Someone needs to own the feedback loop.
Answer-Seeking Behavior
Tags: AI expectations, interface change
Users no longer browse—they interrogate. Curiosity collapses into demand. Systems that don’t deliver answers feel broken, even if they’re right.
Think a term belongs here?
Drop a comment, reply, or @ me with a signal you’re tracking.
This glossary lives and breathes through use.
That's a great idea! Thanks for the inspiration.