Every industry uses jargon and terms that you get to learn over time and web design has more than its fair share of technical references that any experienced professional will be familiar with.
Some of these terms are considered essential knowledge if you are going to be involved in web design or want to talk in the same language as your web designer.
Here are some of the top web design terms to get to know.
1] The language of the web
If you are talking to someone about hosting solutions for your website you will soon be mentioning HTML in the conversation.
Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) is the fundamental language of the internet and it was your web designer will use in order to communicate with a web browser and tell it how to handle each piece of content.
2] Creating a visual set of rules
If you imagine that HTML is one of a series of building blocks, another one of those blocks would be Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
What CSS will do is help control visual content such as what color text to use and what background, amongst other creative elements.
3] A popular scripting language
You are highly likely to encounter JavaScript in web design and it is the scripting language that a designer will use to create interactions on each page.
You would also use JavaScript for special effects and it can help load new content without the need to reload the entire page.
4] Making the web accessible
If you see mention of an Accessible Rich Internet Application (ARIA), this is the term that refers to the technology deployed to help a user’s needs and a web app to align successfully.
5] How information is organized
A generic term used to describe the semantic layout of information and content on your website is Information Architecture (IA).
IA helps all the pages on your website to interact with each other.
6] Establishing an order
The next term to know about is Visual Hierarchy, and this a generic description not confined to web design alone.
It describes the design and layout of each page and will be linked with the Information Architecture process.
7] Responsive design matters
There are so many smartphone users accessing websites that you have to cater for their needs with a responsive design.
What this does is adjust the size of images and other visual aspects so that each page appears the same whether you view it on a PC or a smartphone.
8] A way of coding HTML
Semantic HTML can get very complicated if you are not an experienced web designer but what you need to know is that this is a term used to describe how a search engine is able to define the most critical aspects of a page.
9] Software platform
If you see the acronym SaaS, this is referring to Software as a Service.
SaaS helps you access popular programs like Microsoft Office via the cloud without having to install any additional software.
10] Trailing different layouts
Finally, you might come across what is referred to as A/B Testing.
This is used to experiment with different layouts of web pages to see which one is most popular with visitors, helping to boost your conversion rate when you find the right formula.
These are some prime examples of tech speak and there are plenty more to learn about, but at least you will have more of an understanding when a web designer starts to use this language.
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