10 design term every designer must know.

At the beginning of your career as a designer, you may find it challenging to effectively communicate with your coworkers, particularly those who are more experienced.

To achieve success, dedicating a considerable amount of time to understanding important technology terminology, particularly emphasizing the basic terms, is crucial. This will greatly help you as a designer and team player by enabling you to communicate effectively and establish connections easily.

Take a look at these design terms. Study them. Commit them to memory; it might be too much work, so just subscribe to this newsletter and feel free to use it as your design word cheat sheet whenever the need arises (thank me later??). Okay, back to work. ??

Here are the ten important design words you should know:

1. Consistency: When you think of MTN, do you associate it with the colors red or blue? It's unlikely that your brain instantly thinks of the color yellow, since the company has consistently used it for years, so it's nothing new. The goal of design consistency is for a product to be recognizable to users, regardless of their level of interest. It involves maintaining a uniform design style for a digital product or service by utilizing a standard set of elements like typography, color, and iconography to ensure a cohesive user experience.
2. Balance: In design, balance is about correctly positioning elements on the page to evenly distribute text and graphic elements. There are three methods to attain balance: symmetric, asymmetric, and radial. Symmetry is attained when there is uniformity across all design elements on either side of a central axis. Asymmetry occurs when graphics and text differ on either side of a central line, whereas a radial design involves elements spreading out from a central point to establish equilibrium.
3. Whitespace: White space, also referred to as negative space, is the section of the design not filled with images or text. White space in UI design helps users navigate interactive content, establish a focal point, and draw customers' attention to specific elements. When you want to draw more focus to a specific message, utilize white space around the focal points.
4. Opacity: Opacity is directly related to transparency, indicating how much light can penetrate an object. An item that is highly opaque has minimal transparency, indicating that only a small amount of light can penetrate through. The lower the opacity, the more transparent an element will be. Opacity allows for layering various elements on top of each other while still maintaining some visibility of what lies beneath.
5. Hierarchy: Hierarchy involves organizing and displaying elements in a user interface to direct users' focus, comprehension, and engagement. It organizes elements to convey importance through positioning, scale, and color, leading the viewer's eye through a predetermined path. Hierarchy impacts the sequence in which the human eye interprets visual information.
6. Typography: Typography aims to arrange typefaces in a user interface to ensure text is legible, readable, and scalable. Using the right typography can enhance a product's aesthetic, optimize user-friendliness, and contribute to brand perception.
7. Composition: Composition is the arrangement and organization of visual elements within a design. It involves making deliberate decisions about how different elements, such as lines, shapes, colors, and space, are placed and interact with each other in order to create a unified and harmonious whole. Composition, simply put, refers to the complete organization of all aspects of your design.
8. Grid: A UI grid is a fundamental design layout that arranges content in rows and columns. Grids aim to establish a consistent and harmonious visual order, making navigating and comprehending content easier for your users. If you want a guide that signals where it is best to place, position, and scale elements, make use of grids.
9. Alignment: Alignment is the position of text or graphics, whether left, right, centered, or fully justified. When you align elements on your UI, there is an underlying invisible structure. For example, when two elements are aligned, their edges or center lines follow a common path.
10. Proximity: Proximity is the way in which design elements are grouped or spaced on a page. Proximity is an important principle in design that entails grouping related elements near each other and keeping unrelated ones apart. It improves organization, readability, and user guidance. Make sure to make good use of it in your next design.

Closing thoughts: Use this edition as a reference for the tech jargon needed to advance your learning. Look up each term on Google and educate yourself about it. Understanding each term fully will boost your confidence and knowledge when participating in discussions or demonstrations.

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Motunrayo Joseph is a technical writer at Product Tribe.