Proximity

The placement or otherwise of a thing in relation to other things. In design, proximity may be considered as the distance between two items in space or their relative location to each other.

More terms you might want to know

Hick's Law

A well-known cognitive psychologist's principle that says that the time it takes to make a decision varies logarithmically according to the number of choices. As more options are presented, more decision time is required due to the mental work of comparing and contrasting each potential option.

Font Size

A measure of the height of a set of text on an element.

Zeigarnik Effect

A psychological phenomenon that states that people tend to remember unfinished or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks.

Prototype

Usually the first functional form of a new product, created to test a concept or prove out some aspects of design.

Aspect Ratio

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.

Opacity

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.

White Space

The area of negative space around and between elements in a design.

Diary Study

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.

Full-stack Developer

A software developer who designs, develops, maintains and supports the entire end-to-end product. These developers are capable of developing and implementing modern solutions to any industry problem. They typically work with different technologies such as mobile application development, web application development, back-end software development and front-end software development.

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).

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