Margin

The space that an item has around it.

More terms you might want to know

Font Case

The way characters are capitalised within a word or phrase. Common font cases are uppercase, lowercase, capitalised (or title case) and sentence case.

Affinity Diagram

A data visualisation tool that can be used to explore and group people's thoughts or reactions to a set of concepts. Affinity diagrams are often used in user research and design thinking as an experimental technique for generating new ideas or solutions.

The emergent patterns in these visual representations can help identify which aspects your audience will respond well to, thus enabling decisions on the information architecture and next steps in the process.

It is important to note that affinity diagrams were initially developed for qualitative research but have since been adapted for quantitative research (though they are not typically used with statistical data).

x-height

The distance between the baseline and the mean line of lowercase letters in a typeface. Nearby descenders (such as j) and ascenders (such as q) usually extend slightly below or above this height.

Thumbnail

A small, non-preview image that accompanies a larger image. It provides an immediate sense of the content while not necessarily revealing it in its entire scope.

Hero Image

The primary graphic that appears at the top of a webpage, designed to grab people's attention.

Blur

A type of design technique utilised in the creation of visuals and illustrations. Blur is used to create an impression of movement or a sense of depth.

Isolation Effect

A psychological principle which predicts that when multiple homogeneous stimuli are presented, the stimulus which differs from the rest is most likely to be remembered. In other words, people tend to remember items in isolation more than those of a similar nature or objects in clusters. This phenomenon has been applied in designing websites and software with various levels of success.

Copy

The written information that accompanies a design.

Monospace

A style of typeface that uses a width-to-height ratio of 1:1.

Pictorial Mark

A graphic representation, such as an icon, of a company or brand. Pictorial marks can be used on marketing materials to communicate the intentions and personality of the company. Factors such as colour, placement, and shape are significant in how the general public perceives a pictorial mark.

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