Lean UX

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.

More terms you might want to know

Hex Code

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.

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.

Class

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.

Leading

All available space (line-height) between two consecutive lines of text; this measurement should be adjusted for either ascenders or descenders. In hand typesetting, leading referred to thin strips of lead inserted by hand between lines of type in the composing stick to increase vertical distance.

CSS

CSS or Cascading Style Sheets are a language for describing the look and formatting of HTML elements in a webpage.

Mock-up

A non-functional first draft of a design.

Stroke

The path of any movement, mark, shape, or other feature of a design. It can be the border of an element or even the tight edge of a text box, etc.

Flat Design

A design style first introduced by Microsoft Design Language based on minimalism and simplicity. This newer trend focuses on reducing nonsensical designs and makes the content more accessible for all users.

In this way of designing, fewer elements are used to create shapes and less emphasis on gradients and textures. This modern trend moves away from skeuomorphism. Instead, it focuses on a realistic view or illustration with buttons and icons appearing flat with no shadows.

Pictorial Mark

A graphic representation, such as an icon, of a company or brand. Pictorial marks can be used on marketing materials to communicate the intentions and personality of the company. Factors such as colour, placement, and shape are significant in how the general public perceives a pictorial mark.

Affordance

Affordances describe a relationship between the environment and an animate object, classified as either positive or negative.

Items, such as a car that leads to movement, have a positive affordance. Things like stairs that lead upwards have a negative affordance because they will not allow for any other form of movement other than up or down if used accordingly.

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