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.

More terms you might want to know

PNG Image

A PNG (Portable Network Graphics) file is a bitmap image format that has been designed to store images with an alpha channel. This format is primarily used for transparency so that it can be placed over other graphics in many design applications.

A/B Testing

A statistical method in which two variants of the same activity are compared against each other (typically with several variants), one at a time, and the most effective variant is selected.

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.

Pixel

A pixel, or a picture element, is the smallest addressable element in a display device.

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.

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.

Lorem Ipsum

A type of text used as filler or placeholder text. Since the dawn of time, it has been around and is sometimes erroneously referred to as "a nonsense sentence used by printers who have run out of typesetting space".

Agile Design

A process that involves assigning people to work on different parts of the design and making sure that they focus on one area at a time. This method is an excellent way to release products more quickly and with higher quality.

The most common types of agile methods are Scrum, Kanban, XP and Agile Modeling. It can often be difficult for companies to make the switch because it requires significant changes in how product development occurs.

User Flow

The way that a user navigates through a website, app, etc.

Information Architecture

The art and science of arranging information so that it's intuitive to find, easy to navigate, presents a cohesive design, meets accessibility guidelines, looks attractive on any device or screen size and ultimately drives behaviour change.

Problem?

Got a suggestion or found an issue with the glossary?
Let me know!