Affordance

Affordances describe a relationship between the environment and an animate object, classified as either positive or negative.

Items, such as a car that leads to movement, have a positive affordance. Things like stairs that lead upwards have a negative affordance because they will not allow for any other form of movement other than up or down if used accordingly.

More terms you might want to know

GIF

A file format that supports both static and animated images. It is a popular file format on the internet and social media due to its wide colour support, portability, and animating capabilities.

Landing Page

A standalone web page with content intended to capture a visitor. Often, it has the same URL as the website's home page and is used in paid or sponsored search engine marketing (known more commonly as pay-per-click) advertising campaigns.

Cool Colours

Colours on the opposite side of the colour wheel to warm colours. Typically bluish in tone, such as blue or green.

Iterative Design

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.

Microcopy

The small, non-essential text that appears on an interface. It has been set up specifically to be short and concise to draw attention to an essential user experience.

Persona

A sample of the target audience for which a product or service is intended.

Bleed

A printing term that describes how close an object is to the edge of a printed page. Bleeds are often used in graphic design for books, magazines, posters and other printed materials with photographs or illustrations.

Aperture

The setting on a camera's lens which controls how much light comes into the camera. Aperture settings can usually be set to F-stop values ranging from F1.4-F22. The higher the aperture value, the smaller the opening is, and vice versa, which affects the depth of field in photos and how much light reaches and illuminates a subject or scene in a photo.

Bottom Navigation

One of the most common types of navigation in UI design. It's usually a system of one or more horizontal buttons placed at the bottom of the screen, directing users to other parts of an app or website. Bottom navigation is often used as an alternative to scrolling or tabbing through links on a page.

Body-storming

A UX design technique to explore and map out a service, product, or system through physical navigation, often completed at the start of a design process to provide designers with an understanding of how users will navigate the system. In addition, body-storming can be used in development to test functionality or measure ease of use.

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