Body Copy

The main text of an advertisement or editorial as opposed to headings and subheadings.

More terms you might want to know

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.

Gestalt Theory

A theory in psychology that discusses the general idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It's based on a human need to search for stability and meaning, which leads to organic movements towards wholeness. Gestalt Theory assumes there are inherent flaws in how we perceive forms and patterns, and it holds that this innate tendency transforms into an active process of looking for order in reality.

Proximity

The placement or otherwise of a thing in relation to other things. In design, proximity may be considered as the distance between two items in space or their relative location to each other.

Ascenders

The part of lowercase letters that goes above the baseline when used in running text. As such, ascenders are considered less condensed than those used for numerals and other capital letters. Some examples of ascenders include b, d, h, k, and l. The opposite of an ascender is a descender.

Wireframe

A low-fidelity representation of a user interface design.

White Space

The area of negative space around and between elements in a design.

ID

A selector that can be applied to any HTML element. ID should be used when designing for a single instance, such as using the id="main" attribute on an <h1> tag.

Empathy Map

A way of researching users and understanding their behaviour in the context of the product, helping designers in understanding users' needs and expectations and what motivates them to act.

Designers can use this type of research to understand better their users and what kinds of experiences they are looking for. And this will allow the designers better empathize with their users, making them a part of the learning cycle.

Stem

The part of a letter, usually a vertical line, that rise above the x-height.

Agile Design

A process that involves assigning people to work on different parts of the design and making sure that they focus on one area at a time. This method is an excellent way to release products more quickly and with higher quality.

The most common types of agile methods are Scrum, Kanban, XP and Agile Modeling. It can often be difficult for companies to make the switch because it requires significant changes in how product development occurs.

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