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.
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 last line of a paragraph following the rest, or a single line in a paragraph that is out of place with the rest.
A philosophy that companies should take a user-centred approach to design, making sure they focus on the customer's needs and not on their company's needs. UX designers need to figure out what users want before building something and not after. They must also ask themselves if including "features" will provide any value to the product or service.
A type of design where the colours or tones gradually change from one colour to another. Gradients are often used in graphic design to add visual interest and give the appearance of "extensions" or "glosses" of a particular colour.
A technique for understanding people’s experience of a product or service. Participants are asked to keep daily records of their experience using the product, and these records are taken into consideration when designing the design.
A basic design tool that helps designers create and communicate ideas.
The measure of how easily light passes through a material. It is a quantitative characteristic that can be represented as a number within the range of [0, 1], and in some cases [0%,100%], with lower numbers indicating higher transparency.
The unused or empty space in a composition of images, either two-dimensional (as with paintings) or three-dimensional (as with sculptures).
The small decorative stroke at the end of a stroke in a letter, or a typeface.
A Tagged Image File Format is a file format for storing images losslessly.