Mood board

A collage consisting of images, colours and text that is assembled to convey an idea or theme.

More terms you might want to know

Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

A term that means the smallest amount of work that can be done to move a project forward.

Isolation Effect

A psychological principle which predicts that when multiple homogeneous stimuli are presented, the stimulus which differs from the rest is most likely to be remembered. In other words, people tend to remember items in isolation more than those of a similar nature or objects in clusters. This phenomenon has been applied in designing websites and software with various levels of success.

Typography

The art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable, and appealing when displayed.

Fishbone Diagram

Also known as an Ishikawa diagram, is a widely used technique in project management. The diagram provides a means of evaluating the cause-and-effect relationship between the various activities necessary for completing a project by visualising all activities in the project as bones that interconnect on an anterior and posterior spine, with causality flowing from one to another.

Texture

The surface quality of an element.

Thumbnail Sketch

A quick and rough sketch of what you are about to work on. Good for getting the ideas out of your head and onto the page while you're still in that creative phase.

Hard Return

When you need to break a line of text and start on a new line in a text box.

Pantone (PMS)

The Pantone Matching System is a colour-matching system for printing inks. It is a proprietary colour-matching system that was developed so that when an artist picks PMS colour or swatch, they can be confident in knowing what colours would be produced no matter the application.

Font Weight

The thickness or thinness of a typeface. Common font weights are light, regular/normal, semi-bold, bold and extra bold.

Affinity Diagram

A data visualisation tool that can be used to explore and group people's thoughts or reactions to a set of concepts. Affinity diagrams are often used in user research and design thinking as an experimental technique for generating new ideas or solutions.

The emergent patterns in these visual representations can help identify which aspects your audience will respond well to, thus enabling decisions on the information architecture and next steps in the process.

It is important to note that affinity diagrams were initially developed for qualitative research but have since been adapted for quantitative research (though they are not typically used with statistical data).

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