Aspect Ratio

The ratio of a rectangle's width to its height. It is measured by dividing the shorter side length, here "w" or width, by the longer side length, "h" or height. The aspect ratio may be given as either a fraction or as a decimal.

More terms you might want to know

Abstract Mark

An abstract mark is a type of logo where instead of being a recognizable object from everyday life, it is an abstract geometric form representing a business or brand. Famous examples include the BP starburst logo, and the Pepsi divided circle.

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.

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.

Colour Theory

The study of how colours are related to one another. It is about how we see colour, mix and modify it (according to our needs), and put colour together to achieve the desired mood or atmosphere.

Tracking

The adjustment of all characters in a line by moving them closer together or farther apart.

Pilcrow

Also called a paragraph mark, a paragraph sign or section marker, is a typographical character for separating paragraphs. It looks like a "ΒΆ".

White Space

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

Leading

All available space (line-height) between two consecutive lines of text; this measurement should be adjusted for either ascenders or descenders. In hand typesetting, leading referred to thin strips of lead inserted by hand between lines of type in the composing stick to increase vertical distance.

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.

Infinite Scroll

Generally used when a page has so much content that it would be impossibly long to load the entire page at once. Infinite scroll consists of an auto-generated list of items that constantly loads new items as they load off the bottom of the screen.

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