A prediction model used in human-computer interaction. It states that the time required to move to a target area rapidly increases as the distance to the target increases. The law was proposed by Paul Fitts, an American psychologist, in 1954 as a mathematical model of movement with limited cognitive capacity.
Fitts hypothesized that one would quickly select its first apparent target when reaching for an object before considering alternatives — a phenomenon called "target fixation." This tendency would increase progressively with increased distance between the subject and object until it eventually became exponential (i.e., too far away).
The relative lightness or darkness of a hue.
A concept used in systems design to describe the negative consequences of making seemingly innocuous design changes. Shorthand for a product's delayed but inevitable need to be reworked due to earlier, seemingly trivial decisions not having been fully thought through in the original release.
Designers incur this "debt" by making quick and easy choices that save time in the present but cause more complex problems later on down the road when it becomes necessary to change or add something.
A portion of an image where the remainder is discarded.
An observation in Psychology that suggests that the number of mental objects the average person can keep track of is seven (plus or minus two).
The distance from the baseline to the top of a capital letter, number, or other upper-case glyphs.
A brief snippet taken from the text of an article.
A selector that can be applied to any HTML element. Classes should be used when designing for multiple instances. For example, if you want all <h1> tags in the website to look blue, then you could use the class="blue-text" attribute.
A way of expressing colours on digital media. To specify a hex code, you need to consider the three primary colours: red, green and blue. The hex code is always six characters long and looks like this: #RRGGBB and their values range from 00 to FF.
A design technique employed on websites and mobile apps that encourages users to scroll to view additional content.
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.