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Glossary » k

kerning

the amount of spacing between adjacent letters of type. It’s not sufficient to have letters equally spaced in order for them to look equally spaced. In a word like “balloon”, the letter pair “ll” must be further apart than the…

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keyboard

an input device used to enter alphanumeric data. Keyboards differ widely for different languages, and especially different scripts (writing systems). Keyboards may be physical or may be displayed on the screen, which is common for pen-based systems.

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keyboard accelerator

keyboard shortcut or keyboard mnemonic; a key that acts as a shortcut for a command, such as command key combinations and control key combinations. For instance, CMD-X (or CTRL-X) usually refers to the Cut command.

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keyboard echo

the appearance of letters on the screen as someone types. While echoing what people type is the norm, in some situations it’s not used. Nothing is displayed when users enter one-letter commands, whether they are menu shortcuts or navigation commands…

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keyboard focus

the area or widget on the screen that is currently responsive to keyboard input. The keyboard focus is usually hilited in some way, for instance, with a focus ring around a default button, or the color or details of an…

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keyboard mnemonic

a letter within a menu item or other label that is underlined to indicate that a keystroke-combination can select or activate the associated item. Typically the ALT key activates the mnemonic.

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keystroke rollover

the characteristic that in rapid typing a subsequent key will start being pressed before the previous key has been released. Keyboards need to support this by not requiring that only one key be down at a time.

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kinesthetic feedback

knowledge people have about the position and movement of their bodies based on nerves in their joints and muscles (also known as proprioception). Such feedback may play a role in hand-eye coordination, the use of input devices, and reaction to…

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KISS

keep it simple, stupid! The extremely popular principle of simplicity applicable to any area of design and engineering.

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KLM

Keystroke Level Model. A simple GOMS technique dealing mainly with observable events and organized as a single stream of sequential operators. KLM is easy to learn and can provide fast, but crude, task execution times.

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Know Thy User

a mantra for usability specialists; understand your audience and design for them. Don’t make assumptions about your users. Go out and meet them. Gather data. Perform user testing. Understand how they differ, what their goals are, what their needs are,…

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