Kerning

The process of adjusting the spacing between individual letters to improve or avoid particular visual distortions.

More terms you might want to know

HEART Framework

A framework that helps a company evaluate any aspect of its user experience according to five metrics, which form the acronym HEART. These metrics are: 1. Happiness 2. Engagement 3. Adoption 4. Retention 5. Task success

Card Sorting

A UX design technique in which you divide your users into groups, show them cards with different names for unrelated objects and ask them to categorise them.

Ascenders

The part of lowercase letters that goes above the baseline when used in running text. As such, ascenders are considered less condensed than those used for numerals and other capital letters. Some examples of ascenders include b, d, h, k, and l. The opposite of an ascender is a descender.

UX Roadmap

A design process that can help guide the path of any product or application from discovery to launch stages. A UX roadmap can also be used in marketing to analyse how products are perceived by customers and then determine future options for growth.

Left-aligned

Text that flows from left to right and is the default reading direction of a page with its content aligned on the left margin.

Grid

A system of columns and rows designers use to create layouts. It's used in graphic design and web development to align elements for easy use on the page. Grids are a key part of design because they help you create balance, rhythm, proportion and hierarchy in your layout.

Crop

A portion of an image where the remainder is discarded.

Terminal

The end (straight or curved) of any stroke that doesn’t include a serif. Some typefaces feature ball terminals on letters such as the ‘f’, ‘a’, and ‘c’.

White Space

The area of negative space around and between elements in a design.

Mock-up

A non-functional first draft of a design.

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