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.

More terms you might want to know

Type Classification

A system used to describe and identify typefaces by their basic visual characteristics.

Layout

Layout is a defining characteristic of design. It dictates the positioning of content and design elements. Layouts can range from the simple, such as a four- or two-column layout, to more complex designs like grids with multiple hierarchy levels.

Usability Testing

A process in which subjects use a product or service under test conditions and report their experience.

Serial Position Effect

A phenomenon in psychology in which recalling items in a list imposes an order on the list, with the first and last items remembered best. That is, if given a list of words to remember like "dog apple tree", people will tend to recall "dog" as being at the beginning of the sentence and "tree" as being at the end of it.

Hero Image

The primary graphic that appears at the top of a webpage, designed to grab people's attention.

Stroke

The path of any movement, mark, shape, or other feature of a design. It can be the border of an element or even the tight edge of a text box, etc.

User Scenario

An example of a typical user and the actions they take. Typically these are written in the form of a story.

Vertex

The meeting point where two lines cross.

Bracket

The word "bracket" is often used to refer to parentheses and is written as either [] or () and used to delimit blocks of text, e.g. a set of instructions. Within brackets, items are arranged from left to right in order of precedence.

Heuristic Evaluation

A usability assessment method that is used to evaluate a design against established usability principles or heuristics. It is based on the idea that designers can use their experience to find areas of poor design without extensive user testing.

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