Design Literacy
The understanding and proficiency in the principles, practices, and processes of design. Essential for empowering individuals to effectively participate in and critique design processes.
428 topics found for:
“design principles”
Material Design
A design language developed by Google that uses shadow, depth, and motion to create a realistic and intuitive user interface. Crucial for creating modern, consistent, and user-friendly interfaces.
Form Follows Function
A design principle that states the design of a product or interface should primarily serve its intended purpose or functionality. Important for creating digital designs that are both practical and user-friendly.
Functionalism
A design approach that prioritizes the practical purpose and usability of digital products over purely aesthetic considerations. Important for creating efficient, user-centered designs that effectively fulfill their intended functions.
Art Theory
The study of the principles and techniques of art, including visual composition, aesthetics, and the role of art in society. Important for understanding visual design principles and enhancing the aesthetic quality of digital products.
Architectural Theory
The study of architectural concepts, including the principles and methodologies used in the design and construction of buildings and structures. Useful for understanding spatial design and applying architectural principles to digital interfaces.
Design Canon
A set of fundamental principles and guidelines that inform and shape design practices. Crucial for maintaining design consistency and ensuring high-quality outcomes.
Design Theory
The study of the principles and practices that inform and guide the design process. Essential for understanding the foundational concepts that underpin effective design.
Design Ethics
The principles and guidelines that govern the moral and ethical aspects of design, ensuring that designs are socially responsible and beneficial. Crucial for creating designs that are ethical, inclusive, and socially responsible.
Principles Over Processes
A design philosophy that emphasizes core design principles over rigid adherence to standardized processes. Essential for maintaining creativity and innovation in large-scale, process-driven environments.
Design Principles
Fundamental guidelines that inform and shape the design process, ensuring consistency, usability, and effectiveness in product creation. Essential for creating coherent, user-centered designs that align with organizational goals and user needs.
Prägnanz
A Gestalt principle stating that people will perceive and interpret ambiguous or complex images as the simplest form(s) possible. Important for understanding visual perception and designing intuitive user interfaces.
Figure-Ground
A Gestalt principle that describes the visual relationship between a figure and its background, crucial for understanding visual perception. Important for designing clear and effective visual hierarchies in user interfaces.
Rule of Thirds
A design principle that suggests dividing an image into nine equal parts using two equally spaced horizontal and vertical lines to create more engaging and balanced compositions. Important for creating visually appealing designs and improving aesthetic quality in visual compositions.
Rule of Odds
A design principle that suggests using an odd number of elements in a composition to create visual interest and balance. Crucial for creating aesthetically pleasing designs.
Affordance
The perceived and actual properties of an object that determine how it could be used. Essential for designers to create intuitive and usable interfaces.
Jakob’s Law
A principle stating that users spend most of their time on other websites and prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know. Crucial for designing user-friendly and familiar interfaces.
Color Theory
The body of practical guidance to color mixing and the visual effects of specific color combinations. Crucial for understanding color relationships and creating effective visual designs.
Design Advocacy
The practice of promoting and defending the value of design within an organization or community. Crucial for ensuring that design considerations are prioritized and integrated into decision-making processes.
Atomic Design
A methodology for creating design systems by breaking down interfaces into their basic components (atoms, molecules, organisms, templates, and pages). Essential for creating scalable and maintainable design systems.
Behavioral Design
The application of behavioral science principles to design products that influence user behavior in a desired way. Crucial for creating products that effectively guide user behavior and improve outcomes.
Principle of Repetition
A design principle that involves repeating elements to create consistency and unity, making the design more cohesive and understandable. Crucial for creating visually appealing and user-friendly designs that enhance readability and usability.
Design System
A collection of reusable components, guided by clear standards, that can be assembled to build any number of applications, ensuring consistency and efficiency. Crucial for maintaining design consistency and efficiency across products.
Design Debt
The accumulated consequences of poor design decisions, which can hinder future development and usability. Crucial for understanding and addressing the long-term impact of design choices.
UI Design
The design of user interfaces for machines and software, such as computers, mobile devices, and other electronic devices, with the focus on maximizing usability and the user experience. Essential for ensuring that digital products are intuitive and easy to use.
Interactive Design
The design of interactive digital products, environments, systems, and services. Crucial for creating engaging and user-friendly digital experiences.
Empathy in Design
The practice of deeply understanding and sharing the feelings of users to create products and services that truly meet their needs. Crucial for creating user-centered designs that resonate with users' emotions and experiences.
Experience Design
The practice of designing products, services, and environments with a focus on the overall user experience. Essential for creating holistic and meaningful interactions.
UCD
User-Centered Design (UCD) is an iterative design approach that focuses on understanding users' needs, preferences, and limitations throughout the design process. Crucial for creating products that are intuitive, efficient, and satisfying for the intended users.
Uniform Connectedness
A Gestalt principle stating that elements that are visually connected are perceived as more related than elements with no connection. Essential for creating designs that effectively group related elements.
Similarity
A Gestalt principle that states that objects that are similar in appearance are perceived as being more related than objects that are dissimilar. Essential for creating visually cohesive and intuitive designs.
Focal Point
A Gestalt principle stating that elements with a distinct visual feature (e.g., a unique color, size, or shape) capture attention and are perceived as a focal point. Crucial for designing interfaces that direct attention toward visual elements that signal and enable forward progress.
Proximity
A Gestalt principle that states objects that are close to each other tend to be perceived as a group. Crucial for creating intuitive and organized visual designs that align with natural perceptual tendencies.
Lean UX
A user experience design methodology focused on rapid iteration, collaboration, and learning through experimentation. Essential for creating user-centered designs efficiently and effectively.
IxD
Interaction Design (IxD) focuses on creating engaging interfaces with well-thought-out behaviors. Crucial for ensuring intuitive and effective user interactions.
Skeuomorphism
A design concept where digital interfaces incorporate elements that resemble their real-world counterparts to make them more intuitive and familiar to users. Important for creating intuitive and user-friendly interfaces by leveraging familiar real-world cues.
Grid System
A framework used in graphic and web design to organize content in a structured and consistent manner. Essential for creating balanced and readable layouts.
Nielsen’s Heuristics
A set of ten general principles for user interface design created by Jakob Nielsen to improve usability. Essential for evaluating and improving user interface designs.
Common Fate
A Gestalt principle stating that elements moving in the same direction are perceived as a group or a single entity. Crucial for creating visual designs that effectively convey movement and relationships.
HCD
Human-Centered Design (HCD) is an approach to problem-solving that involves the human perspective in all steps of the process. It ensures designs are user-friendly and meet actual user needs.
Minimalism
A design approach that emphasizes simplicity, using only the necessary elements to create a clean and uncluttered look. Essential for creating intuitive and user-friendly interfaces.
Tesler’s Law
The principle stating that there is a limit to the amount of complexity that users can handle, and if designers don't manage complexity, users will. Crucial for designing user-friendly systems that manage complexity effectively.
Continuity
A Gestalt principle that describes the tendency of the human visual system to perceive lines or patterns that follow a smooth, continuous path rather than a disjointed or abrupt one. Essential for creating designs that guide the user's eye smoothly and logically.
Neurodesign
The application of neuroscience principles to design, aiming to create more effective and engaging user experiences based on how the brain processes information. Crucial for creating designs that align with human cognitive and emotional processes.
Common Region
A Gestalt principle where elements that are located within the same closed region are perceived as being grouped together. Essential for creating designs that are easily understood and visually organized.
Flexibility-Usability Tradeoff
A principle stating that as the flexibility of a system increases, its usability often decreases, and vice versa. Crucial for balancing versatility and ease of use in design.
Gutenberg Diagram
A design principle that suggests a pattern for how people read a webpage, dividing it into four quadrants and emphasizing the importance of the top-left and bottom-right areas. Essential for creating effective layouts that align with natural reading patterns.
Graceful Degradation
A design principle that ensures a system continues to function at a reduced level rather than completely failing when some part of it goes wrong. Crucial for enhancing system reliability and user experience in adverse conditions.
POLA
Principle of Least Astonishment (POLA) is a design guideline stating that interfaces should behave in a way that users expect to avoid confusion. Crucial for enhancing user experience and reducing the learning curve in digital products.
Mobile-First
A design strategy that prioritizes the mobile user experience by designing for mobile devices first before scaling up to larger screens. Crucial for creating accessible and responsive designs that work well on all devices.
Golden Ratio
A mathematical ratio, approximately 1.618:1, often used in design and art to create aesthetically pleasing compositions. Important for designing visually balanced and appealing layouts, leveraging natural aesthetics to enhance user experience.
TDA
Tell, Don't Ask (TDA) is a design principle in software engineering that promotes encapsulation by having objects handle their own data and actions. Essential for maintaining object-oriented integrity and reducing dependencies in the code.
Anthropomorphism
The attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities, often used in design to make interfaces more relatable and engaging. Important for creating relatable and engaging designs that resonate with users.
Connectedness
A Gestalt principle suggesting that elements are perceived as a single unit or group if they share an organizing visual cue like bullet points, or connecting lines. Essential for creating designs that organize and define related elements through grouping.
Summative Testing
A type of usability testing conducted at the end of the design process to evaluate the effectiveness and overall user experience. Important for assessing the final design's usability and identifying any remaining issues.
Aesthetic Theory
The study of the nature of beauty, art, and taste and the creation and appreciation of beauty. Essential for creating visually appealing and engaging user interfaces.
Internal Consistency
The degree to which a product's elements are consistent with each other. Crucial for creating a cohesive and intuitive user experience.
Reification
A key aspect of Gestalt psychology describing the mind's ability to fill in gaps to create a whole object from incomplete elements. Crucial for designing creative and engaging visuals that are both pleasing to the eye and cleverly satisfying to the mind.
Application Architecture
The high-level structure of a software application, defining its components and their interactions. Essential for designing robust, scalable, and maintainable digital products.
Design Language
A cohesive system of visual and interaction design principles and guidelines that ensure consistency and coherence across a product or brand's interfaces and experiences. Essential for creating a unified and recognizable user experience, ensuring consistency, usability, and brand identity across all platforms and touchpoints.