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.
An organised arrangement of elements used for a particular purpose, such as to create striking visual effects or to convey information effectively. Good composition is achieved through different methods, such as placing figures or objects in a scene, revising and simplifying lines and shapes that make up a figure, and arranging multiple figures or objects into meaningful relationships.
A phenomenon in psychology in which recalling items in a list imposes an order on the list, with the first and last items remembered best. That is, if given a list of words to remember like "dog apple tree", people will tend to recall "dog" as being at the beginning of the sentence and "tree" as being at the end of it.
Also known as visual hierarchy, hierarchy is the ordering of priorities in a design. This may include different visual elements, such as contrast, colour, font size and placement on a page. The graphic designer's job is to create an understandable document using organisational systems that the reader easily understands.
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.
The space that an item has around it.
The art and science of arranging information so that it's intuitive to find, easy to navigate, presents a cohesive design, meets accessibility guidelines, looks attractive on any device or screen size and ultimately drives behaviour change.
The ratio of a rectangle's width to its height. It is measured by dividing the shorter side length, here "w" or width, by the longer side length, "h" or height. The aspect ratio may be given as either a fraction or as a decimal.
One or more words (typically at the end of a paragraph) that are separated from the rest of the text. Orphans are generally thought of as bad design, but it’s a matter of taste.
The unused or empty space in a composition of images, either two-dimensional (as with paintings) or three-dimensional (as with sculptures).
The process of developing a product or design system that can be altered to fit different device and interaction contexts.