A theory in psychology that discusses the general idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It's based on a human need to search for stability and meaning, which leads to organic movements towards wholeness. Gestalt Theory assumes there are inherent flaws in how we perceive forms and patterns, and it holds that this innate tendency transforms into an active process of looking for order in reality.
A graphical representation of the user on a device, used to represent various users in different contexts. It can be a photo, image or drawing.
The space that an item has around it.
A term that means the smallest amount of work that can be done to move a project forward.
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.
A key performance indicator is a variable that measures how well an entity is performing. It's a figure that designates an individual or item's performance level. A particular company may use metrics such as sales, revenue, production, and market share to gauge the success of their firm.
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.
Red, green, and blue. These colours can be used to form a wide variety of colours in different devices such as computer monitors and televisions.
Also called trim marks, are markings on artwork that tells the printer where to cut the page.
The typographic term for the dot above the letters 'i' and 'j'.
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).