Glossary
The definitions and context for common terms used throughout Water.
- Accessible
- How usable something is for everyone, at any given time. Including people with disabilities and differing backgrounds.
- Alignment
- How elements visually line up with each other, in order to convey context, relationships, etc.
- Aspect ratio
- The relationship between width and height of a visual element (like 16:9 for widescreens).
- Brand identity
- The personality or vibe of your product—how it looks, feels, and talks to users.
- Cognitive load
- How much mental effort a user needs to use or understand your design.
- Component
- This term can vary quite a bit depending on the context it’s used in. It is primarily defined here (though not limited to) as a reusable group of elements designed to serve a specific function.
- Context
- The background information that is critical to understanding a task at hand.
- Contrast
- The difference in saturation levels of colors on a page.
- Design
- The process or outcome of solving a problem or need through intentional visual or functional choices.
- Design state
- A category for the type of screen being designed.
- Design system
- Any set of rules, guidelines, or intentions that govern how your brand will exist in the digital space
- Element
- The smallest building block of an interface
- Font
- A specific style of text
- Foundation
- The most stable, rarely changed parts of a design system—like core colors, spacing units, or typography rules.
- Functionality
- How effective a design is at achieving the intended results
- Hierarchy
- The visual ranking of information—what looks most important and what comes next.
- Hue
- A specific color (like red, blue, or green) before adjusting brightness or saturation.
- Legibility
- How easy it is to recognize and read individual letters or words.
- Messaging
- The information you are communicating to a user
- Palette
- A specific set of colors chosen for a product or brand.
- Principles
- Core beliefs that guide design decisions (like “simplicity” or “user-first”).
- Punctuation
- ...
- Reading order
- The order in which content is meant to be read, especially important for screen readers and keyboard navigation.
- Saturation
- A scale of hue that reflects how pure a color is (100% saturation) relative to how grey it appears (0% saturation)
- Sentence case
- A writing style that capitalizes only the first word of a sentence and proper nouns (e.g., “This is sentence case.”)
- Title case
- A writing style that capitalizes most words in a title (e.g., “This Is Title Case”).
- Type
- Short for typeface—a family of fonts
- Whitespace
- The intentional “empty” space you see on the screen—it helps readability and keeps designs from feeling crowded.
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