A field of study that aims to understand the user experience of a product or service. Conducting UX research includes interviewing, observing, and surveying users. Understanding the user experience is important because it helps designers understand how to design a better product that will be more appealing and usable for people.
The arrangement of different elements in relation to each other so that they appear to be mirrored. Symmetrical designs can be found throughout art and architecture, as well as in nature.
A way of developing new products or services using a process of repeated and regular refinement, in which prototypes are made, evaluated, revised, and re-evaluated until the desired result is achieved. High profile companies have successfully implemented iterative design to create effective and innovative products.
A type of user interface design carefully crafted to trick people into doing things they might not want to do.
A collage consisting of images, colours and text that is assembled to convey an idea or theme.
A letter, symbol, or another alphabet unit.
A type of design where the colours or tones gradually change from one colour to another. Gradients are often used in graphic design to add visual interest and give the appearance of "extensions" or "glosses" of a particular colour.
Also known as the divine proportion, is a number, or a ratio, sometimes approximated by phi and widely considered aesthetically pleasing. The golden ratio has been featured in nature and art in many ways, including hexagonal honeycombs, the human body, and mathematics. More frequently, it is used in design and digital art to represent a path (or steps) one can take to achieve a particular look or result. In art, an artist may produce something (a painting or drawing, for example) using the golden ratio as a basis for its composition.
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.
One or more words (typically at the end of a paragraph) that are separated from the rest of the text. Orphans are generally thought of as bad design, but it’s a matter of taste.
A unit of measurement that equals 1/6 of an inch, or 1/72 of a foot.