Kerning

The process of adjusting the spacing between individual letters to improve or avoid particular visual distortions.

More terms you might want to know

Empathy Map

A way of researching users and understanding their behaviour in the context of the product, helping designers in understanding users' needs and expectations and what motivates them to act.

Designers can use this type of research to understand better their users and what kinds of experiences they are looking for. And this will allow the designers better empathize with their users, making them a part of the learning cycle.

Greyscale / Grayscale

Black, white, and all the values of shades in between.

Persona

A sample of the target audience for which a product or service is intended.

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.

Affinity Diagram

A data visualisation tool that can be used to explore and group people's thoughts or reactions to a set of concepts. Affinity diagrams are often used in user research and design thinking as an experimental technique for generating new ideas or solutions.

The emergent patterns in these visual representations can help identify which aspects your audience will respond well to, thus enabling decisions on the information architecture and next steps in the process.

It is important to note that affinity diagrams were initially developed for qualitative research but have since been adapted for quantitative research (though they are not typically used with statistical data).

Customer Experience

The sum of all experiences an individual has with a company or its delivery channels during their journey. From handling and registering a complaint to ordering new products, these interactions are monitored and analyzed at every touchpoint by frontline employees, developers, designers, and product managers for improvement opportunities.

Iterative Design

A way of developing new products or services using a process of repeated and regular refinement, in which prototypes are made, evaluated, revised, and re-evaluated until the desired result is achieved. High profile companies have successfully implemented iterative design to create effective and innovative products.

Margin

The space that an item has around it.

Brand Mark

A logo, symbol, design, or pattern used to promote and distinguish one's brand or company from others.

Rule of Thirds

A rule of thumb used in photography to create more visually appealing images which states that an image should be composed so that the subject or focus of the image occupies one-third of the picture space, with two equal vertical lines dividing their composition into two.

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