A - Z of Web Design Jargon

Read the guide to web design industry jargon. A tool to help you understand what web designers are talking about!

The peeps at Smashing Magazine have very kindly compiled a comprehensive list of web design jargon. The list is ideal for anyone starting out in web design, or for anyone who is looking to have a new website designed. Some of the technical terms and acronyms that web designers use can be very confusing for anyone, so the list is very handy indeed! In addition, Smashing Magazine have also provided resources for each term for more in-depth information.

So if you don’t know your Front-End from your Plug-In, then this list is ideal.

Here are some of the web design terms in more explaination:

Breadcrumb

Breadcrumbs are the bit of navigation elements that generally appear near the top of a give web page that show you the pages and subpages the appear before the page you’re on. For examples, on a blog, the breadcrumbs might look something like: Home > Category > Year > Month > Post (or they might be a lot simpler that that). The breadcrumbs term comes from the fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel.”

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

Also referred to simply as CSS, Cascading Style Sheets are used to define the look and feel of a web site outside of the actual HTML file(s) of the site. In recent years, CSS has replaced tables and other HTML-based methods for formatting and laying out websites. The benefits to using CSS are many, but some of the most important are the simplification of a site’s HTML files (which can actually increase search engine rankings) and the ability to completely change the style of a site by changing just one file, without having to make changes to content.

Favicon

Favicons are tiny (generally 16×16 pixels, though some are 32×32 pixels), customizable icons displayed in the web address bar in most browsers next to the web address. They’re either 8-bit or 24-bit in color depth and are saved in either .ico, .gif or .png file formats.

HTML

Stands for Hypertext Markup Language. It’s the primary language used to write web pages. HTML is primarily intended as a way to provide content on websites (with CSS handling the layout and stylistic options), though it can also be used to determine how that content is displayed.

Usability

Usability refers to how easy it is for a visitor to your site to use your site in its intended manner. In other words, are navigation, content, images, and any interactive elements easy to use, functioning the way they were intended, and that your intended target visitor will not need any special training in order to use your site.

To see the full list: A-Z list of Web Design Industry Jargon click here

If you have any other web design terms that your not sure about, please let us know and we’ll try our best to give you a non technical explanation.

Posted by on 10th Jun 2009 in • Web Design • Web Development