The surface quality of an element.
The process of adjusting the spacing between individual letters to improve or avoid particular visual distortions.
A psychological phenomenon that states that people tend to remember unfinished or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks.
In handwriting and calligraphy, ball terminals are the end of a stroke that resembles a ball. They are also used in some typefaces like cursive or old-style typefaces.
A tool that allows user experience designers, or people who design products and websites with consumers in mind, to track where users look on the screen. Eye-tracking can measure users’ attention and the duration of time they spend on different areas of a website. With this information, websites can create user experience solutions such as buttons with varying colours designed to catch the eye.
The process of adding game-like qualities to an experience like a website or application. To ensure that these activities are engaging enough for the users, it often includes gradual rewards such as levels and badges systems, which can further encourage engagement with the app.
The portion of a letter such as y, p, q or j that hangs below the baseline of the text.
The art of drawing original characters and symbols — especially for decorative purposes.
A concept used in systems design to describe the negative consequences of making seemingly innocuous design changes. Shorthand for a product's delayed but inevitable need to be reworked due to earlier, seemingly trivial decisions not having been fully thought through in the original release.
Designers incur this "debt" by making quick and easy choices that save time in the present but cause more complex problems later on down the road when it becomes necessary to change or add something.
A non-functional first draft of a design.
The meeting point where two lines cross.