Every industry has its fair share of jargon. However, the web design sector is particularly adept at inventing confusing terms, acronyms, and abbreviations. And if you are new to the world of web design, content overflowing with this jargon can be pretty baffling. So, here is a straight-talking glossary of web design terminology.
18 Crucial Web Design Terms Explained
Web Design Terms
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AB Testing
AB testing, also known as split testing, is a testing methodology to determine the best of several options. For example, you might develop two landing pages for a single purpose. Then, you would direct 50% of traffic to each page and track the conversions. The page with the highest conversion rate would then be adopted as the primary landing page.
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Accessibility
Accessibility refers to the ease of using a website for people with disabilities. For example, you could make a website more accessible by choosing contrasting colors that will be easy to read for partially sighted visitors. Accessibility covers a wide range of web design, including button sizes and placement, optimizing content for screen readers, and the appropriate use of Alt tags.
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Bounce Rate
The bounce rate is a term used in web analytics that refers to the percentage of visitors who leave a site after only briefly viewing one page. Most websites have bounce rates in the region of 40%.
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Content-First Design
A content-first design approach places the priority on the content. So, the content is written first, and the website is designed around that content. The alternative method is to fit the content to the available space on a site.
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CTA
A call to action (CTA) is a line of text, a banner, or a button that calls a user to take action. CTAs generally contain brief but compelling action phrases encouraging the user to take a particular action. A typical example of a call to action is the “Buy Now” button on an eCommerce site.
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CSS
CSS (cascading style sheets) is the language web designers use to style the page. CSS is used to define colors, fonts, and shapes. HTML, as discussed below, establishes the structure of a page. The difference between CSS and HTML is often described as HTML being the skeleton and CSS being the skin.
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HTML
HTML, the primary language of web pages, stands for Hypertext Markup Language. HTML is used to define the basic structure and content of a page. It uses tags to indicate different elements, such as headers, body text, and images.
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JavaScript
JavaScript is a programming language used to develop interactive elements on a website. For example, JavaScript would be the language used to validate a form and write the form’s contents to the database. JavaScript can also be used to create dynamic special effects on a page and for performing backend functions.
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Lazy Loading
Lazy loading is a website optimization technique that delays the loading of videos and images until the user has scrolled to them. Lazy loading speeds up the initial loading of a webpage.
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Meta Tags
Meta tags are snippets of information that describe the content of a webpage to search engines. Meta tags are not visible to the end-user, but search engines use the tags to index web pages.
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Mobile-First Design
Traditionally, websites were developed with the desktop user in mind. Then, the website was adopted or made responsive to fit the smaller screens of mobile devices. A mobile-first design methodology takes to the opposite approach. The website or app is designed first for mobile devices and then adapted for the larger screens of desktop computers.
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Responsive
A response website changes its appearance to suit the device on which it is being viewed. So, the user does not need to zoom and pinch to use the site. More than 60% of website traffic now comes from mobile devices. So, responsive design has become a standard feature of modern websites.
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Sticky Element
A sticky element is an element of a web page that holds its position as the user scrolls down the page. An example of a sticky element is a menu that remains visible when the user scrolls down the page. Another example is a chatbot dialogue that remains open and fixed as the user moves around a page.
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UAT
UAT (user acceptance testing) is one of the more confusing web design terms because UAT doesn’t usually involve any end-users. The people who conduct user acceptance testing are traditionally members of a client’s team. UAT is the final website testing before project sign-off and the site going live.
- Usability Testing
Usability testing tests how easy a site is to use. The testing process usually involves people without a connection to the website testing various options and procedures and documenting their thoughts. Usability testing is conducted before UAT testing and focuses on the ease of use of specific functions.
- UX
UX is short for user experience. User experience in web design encompasses the design techniques and tools used to identify and cater to users’ needs and goals. User experience is also a term often used to describe a person’s satisfaction with an experience on a website. For example, a visitor website could have a good, bad, or frustrating user experience. So, UX covers almost every aspect of a user’s interaction with a website.
- UI
UI refers to the user interface or the front end of a website. The user interface encompasses visual design aspects, such as color scheme and typography. And the UI also includes elements of a site that a user will interact with, including forms.
- Wireframes
A wireframe in web design terminology refers to a basic outline of a web page. A wireframe usually contains no colors, content, or graphics. Instead, it is a sketch of the layout of the various elements on a page. Wireframing is often the first step in a web design project.
Conclusion
The above list of web design terminology is far from exhaustive. Indeed, the web design industry has many more terms to confuse and baffle the uninitiated! So, more web design jargon will be explained in a future post. In the meantime, though, this list will hopefully help you unravel some of the terminology often used in web design circles.
