Web Design Glossary of Terms

Below is a web design glossary of the most commonly used terms and their meanings. If you would like to suggest more please use the comments area.

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

A

Accessibility
Accessibility with reference to a Web site is the degree to which that web site is usable by people with disabilities.

Active (CSS)
After is a CSS selector used to style content that is currently being clicked on, Active is more commonly applied to links and buttons to alter the appearance when the user clicks.

After (CSS)
After is a CSS selector used to insert content after the specifc element it is applied to. Content is inserted using the CSS Content property.

AJAX
AJAX is an acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. It is used to exchange data with the webserver without needing to reload the page, reducing the server load slightly. AJAX is commonly used in search query boxes to predict the user search.

Anchor (HTML)
An anchor is a tag in HTML usually specified by <a>…</a>. An anchor can have various attributes assigned including Href to link to other pages, Name which allows other links to link to that place in a document using a # (the letters at the top use these) and target to specific how the link opens, e.g. in a new window, or in the same window.

Attributes (HTML)
HTML attributes are used to specifiy additional information about a tag. They usually occur in Name Value pairs like class=’myclass’ or id=’a’

B

Background (CSS)
The background CSS property is used to style the background element, it has additional longhanded extentions to style individual parts of the background separately such as background-position and background-color, or it can be written in shorthand by specifying all values under background: . As of CSS3, background also supported the use of gradients.

Backlinks
Backlinks are links coming from other websites to yours. The number and quality of backlinks that your site has can affect your search engine optimisation efforts, as some search engines provide significant weight to the backlinks of a site.

Bandwidth (Web Hosting)
Bandwidth is a measure of data transfered over a period of time, it may also be called data usage or data transfer. The term Bandwidth in this context is considered incorrect.

Bitrate (Multimedia)
In multimedia, the bitrate is the number of bits processed in a given time, for example, if 512KB is processed in 4 seconds, the bitrate is said to be 128KBPS (128 KB per second)

Block Level Elements
Block Level elements are large content defining elements on a page, examples of block elements include divs and tables, by default, block elements start on new lines.

Blog
A blog is like an online version of a journal, it usually consists of short “posts” or entries, and can be about just about anything, ever. Example subjects may be to tell people about up-coming events, or just what you have been doing currently.

Border (CSS)
The Border property allows you to specify a border on the element. Border is a short hand property used to combine border-x-color, border-x-size, border-x-style where X is the direction.

Border Image (CSS)
Border Image is a new property in CSS3 which allows you to move away from the pre-defined border styles and use your own scalable images for box borders, this can range from simple patterns, to elegant photoframes.

Border Radius (CSS)
Border Radius is a new property in CSS3 used to soften, or round, the corners on elements without needing to use image replacements.

Box Model
All HTML elements can be considered as boxes. In CSS, the term “box model” is used in context of design and layout.The CSS box model is essentially a box that wraps around HTML elements, and it consists of: margins, borders, padding, and the actual content. The box model allows us to place a border around elements and space elements in relation to other elements.

Browser (Web)
A web browser is a computer program which is used to interact with the internet and view documents and pages online, popular examples of web browsers are Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.

C

Cascading Style Sheet (CSS)
A style sheet language developed in 1997 by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) which enables web designers to separate the formatting from an HTML document and store it in a separate file. CSS is currently at version (or revision) 3.

Cookies
Cookie is a name given to a small text file stored in the browser used to save a key piece of information about the user or site, cookies may be used to save information like the vote taken in a poll or the saved username for that particular website.

CDATA
CDATA is an acronym for Character Data, and refers to any text in a document that is not to be parsed by the XML parser, any entites inside the CDATA block will not be replaced by, or treated as, markup.

Class (CSS)
A class can be used to style specific html elements which have a class attribute that matches the css class. Classes in CSS are specified with a “.”, in the code: CSS .red{color:red;} .blue{color:blue} HTML text the text inside the P tag would be red.

Cursor (CSS)
In CSS the cursor property is used to manipulate the user’s cursor to change when hovered over the element, cursor examples are Text, Pointer Directional Resize

CMS
CMS, or Content Management System, is the system used to enable Web Admins to update and change the content on their site, usually without needing any technical knowledge. CMSs usually use databases to store pages, rather than a physical file, Examples of CMSs are WordPress, Drupal and Joomla.

Child (HTML)
In HTML, an element inside another element is considered to be the child element, for example, in the HTML code <a>text</a> the A tag is a child of the P tag, and the Span tag is a child of the A tag, and a grand-child of the P tag.

D

DHTML
Dynamic HTML is the term given to a collection of techs used together to create interactive and animated sites. The techs usually used in DHTML are Javascript, CSS and HTML

deprecated (CSS/HTML)
Any property in CSS, or tag in HTML that is said to be deprecated is no longer part of the current specification, for example, in HTML5, the font tag is deprecated.

Domain Name
A Domain Name is a case-insensitive string of letters, numbers, and hyphens that is used to define the location of a website. Domain names are used as pointers to IP addresses. Sub domains are usually prefixed to the beginning of the domain. Our domain name is hitreach.co.uk and a subdomain would be example.hitreach.co.uk

Declaration (CSS)
A declaration, or declaration block, is the set of property:values that style an element for example in a{text-decoration:none} the {text-decoration:none} is the declaration block.

DPI
DPI, or Dots Per Inch, is the number of pixels per inch on a computer monitor, the resolution is usually between 72 and 96 DPI, therefore web graphics should be made no more than 72 DPI, in print, printers can do upto 300 DPI.

Dedicated Web Server
A Dedicated Web Server is a server you either own or rent and have exclusive use of, with a dedicated web server, you can use all the resources of the server to yourself. Dedicated servers are alot more expensive to rent that shared hosting and virtual servers.

DOCTYPE
The DOCTYPE declaration is found at the top of a HTML document to tell the user agent which version of (X)HTML the page uses, examples of HTML versions are TML 4.01 Strict, HTML 4.01 Transitional and HTML 4.01 Frameset

E

em (CSS)
EM is a used to set font sizes and dimentions of child elements in relation to parent elements,

em (HTML)
In the newer HTML specifications the em tag has replaced the i tag for specifying content in italics.

Ecommerce
Ecommerce is the sale of digital or phyical goods / services online

Extensible Markup Language
See XML

External Link
An external link is a link that goes to another site, usually on another domain. It is good practice to open new external links in new tabs/windows.

F

Favicon
A Favicon is the small image that appears to the left on the web address bar in most browsers, it is used to easily identify the site and is usually a small version of the site’s logo

First Child(CSS)
First Child is a pseudoclass in CSS that applies the style definition to the element, it the element is the first child of it’s parent.

Font (CSS)
The typeface, defining the size, family, weight, and style. Font can generally be broken down into 2 types, Web Safe, and Not Web Safe. Web safe fonts include Arial, Geneva and Verdana, and are called such because almost all visitors will have the font installed on their computer so they are save to view. Non Web safe fonts are those that most users may not have installed as default on their computer, such as Calibri, which is a microsoft font, so Mac users may not have it. With CSS3, @font-face allows designers to specify custom fonts for use on the page from hosted font files from their own servers or from services such as Google Web Fonts

Font Family(CSS)
A font family is the group name for a set of fonts that look fairly similar, for example, Arial and Verdana can be called a family as they are similar sans-serif fonts.

Float (CSS)
The float property specifies whether or not an element should float and the place it should float. by floating objects, you can enable text to wrap nicely around it.

FTP
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is the set of rules for transfering files to and from webservers. There are a range of FTP clients available for use, including Filezilla and Windows Explorer’s own built in.

G

Gif
GIF is an image file type that supports 256 color images and loss-less compression, it had almost universal browser support and is used for animated images on sites as well as other elements such as repeating background gradients.

Graceful Degradation
Gracefull Degradation is the term coined for substuiting modern methods with alternative solutions for browsers that don’t support that property. for example, if you are using CSS3 gradients for a background image, an example of graceful degradation would be to specify and image or solid color to use when gradients are not available.

Gradients
Gradients are blocks of color that have a transition from one color to a different color or shade. There are 2 different types of gradients, Linear and Radial. Linear gradients go along with the horizontal or vertical axis where as radial gradients go from the center outwards.

H

HTML
HTML, or HyperText Markup Language, is the main scripting language behind the creation of web pages and applications. It uses a series of key words called tags enclosed in angled brackets, < and >. HTML tags usually appear in pairs, the first is called an opening tag and the second is the closing tag, however there are some elements such as the img tag, that only have an opening tag. It is these tags that a web browser reads and composes into a visual document for users. HTML documents are usually accompanied by Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) documents to style the visual look for pages to give users a better viewing experience.

HTTP
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the set of rules for transfering documents on the web. When used in a URL it tells the browser what method to use to gather information. HTTP has an extension of S (HTTPS) which utilizes SSL to make the connection secure, which is useful for transfering sensitive data such as credit card details

Hyperlink
A portion of a web document that is highlighted in some way (default is underlined for text, and bordered for images) and links to another document on the web.

Hypertext
In a web document, hypertext is text that is a clickable link. In networking, it is a method of information retrieval

.htaccess
.htaccess is a directory level configuration file for Apache servers. Htaccess files are used to configure things like file headers for caching, and url rewrites within the current directory, .htaccess files are unusual in that they have no physical file name, and just a .filetype, because of this, they can prove difficult to create. In Windows, they can be created by saving a notepad file as “.htaccess” (with the quotes)

Hexadecimal
Hexadecimal (Hex Code) are the 6 digit codes used to assign colors in CSS documents. Hexadecimal uses a base 16 numbering system, and goes A-F after passing 9. for example A = 10 and F = 16 however, what caches many out, it that 17 is actually 11! Three individal hexadecimal numbers pairs are combined to create web colors, which are split into R G B and preceeded with a # symbol. for example #ff0000 #009900 and #aa9900. In newer CSS specifications, 4 2-digit pairs are used, with the first 3 pairs still being R G B and the last one being Alpha transparency. The highest value of a pair is FF which translates to an decimal value of 256, this allows support of 16.7 million colors + 256 levels of alpha.

I

IP Address
An IP address is the numerical designation of a computer attached to the Internet. When you enter your web address, the DNS looks up the corrisponding IP addess for the site, and contacts the server though the IP. Most home networks use the IP address 192.168.1.XXX

Internal Link
An internal link is a link on a page that links to another page or document on the same site. It is common practice for internal links to open in the same window

Inheritance (CSS)
An property that is declared to be inheritated will take the property style from its parent element. Inheritance is not supported in older versions of Internet Explorer.

Inline Style
Inline Style is the term given the CSS written directly into the Style attribute of a HTML tag. Inline Styles have the highest precedence of styles an can only be overwitten !important in stylesheets.

!important
!Important is an extention to a property value, used to apply overrides to styles. a property set to !important will retail its value, even if a non-important selector further down the CSS document tries to change it.

Inline Elements
Inline elements are HTML elements that are not block level. They do not break content onto new lines and are generally more for formatting, for example: b, strong, em and span are inline elements used to apply bold, italics and other styles. An inline element can be made to be a block level element by adding the CSS display:block;

J

JPEG
JPEG is a popular image format that supports 16 million colors and uses a varying degree of lossy compression in images. JPEG images do not support animation like it’s GIF counterpart, however it does support more colors. JPEG’s are one of the most popular image formats on the web today

JSON
JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a lightweight text-based, humanly readable object notation derived from the JavaScript language for representing Data Structures and Associative Arrays. JSON is not tied to Javascript, and has parsers available in many languages, including PHP.

K

KHTML
KHTML is the engine used by the Konqueror Web Browser, it has a forked version called Webkit which powers browsers such as Safari and Google Chrome, KHTML has some specifc vendor prefixes in CSS however they are few and far between

L

LAMP
LAMP is an acronym for a web platform consisting of Linux OS, Apache WebServer, MySQL database and PHP programming language

Line Height (CSS)
Line height is used to specify the separation between text lines in an element. A line-height with a heigher-than-font-size value will make the text more spaced out, however a line-height with a lower-than-font-size value will bring the lines closer together

Letter Spacing (CSS)
The letter-spacing property increases or decreases the space between characters in a text, e.g. This Is Letter Spacing of 10px

Link
See Hyperlink

Last Child (CSS)
Last Child is a pseudoclass used to apply the style declaration to the the element, if it is the last child element inside a parent.

Liquid Layout
Liquid layouts are also known as fluid layouts, are based on the width the user’s browser screen and scale elements to fit, These layouts are useful to cater for visitors with various screen resolutions.

Lorem Ipsum
Lorem Ipsum is dummy placeholder text used by designers in inital designs to simulate text content. Lorem Ipsum is favoured by designers as it looks quite similar to actual content rather than using something like “your text here” over and over.

M

MySql
Mysql is a relational database management system that provided access to databases. it uses SQL to query the database and return results to the user. MySQL is commonly used with PHP to create web applications such as WordPress and Drupal

N

There are no entries

O

OOP
OOP Stands for Object-oriented programming and is a programming paradigm using objects, in PHP, OOP uses classes and methods rather than Proceedural methods

Q

There are no entries

R

RSS
RSS is a structure of XML that provides a “feed” of content for other people to use on their sites, RSS is more common when there are articles or blogs, for example, View Our RSS Feed

S

SQL
SQL stands for Structured Query Language and is used to interact with MySQL and other types of SQL Databases using keywords and column / table names. Basic SQL queries can be broken down to SELECT columns FROM table Where value = something

T

Typeface
Typeface is more commonly known as Font Face, and is the letters, numbers and symbols used to make up specific font style, type faces include “Arial” and “Verdana”

U

URL
URL or Uniform Resource Locator is the address of a resource on the internet. “http://www.hitreach.co.uk/feed/” is an example of a URL

V

Validation
Validation is a generic term relating to checking a form entry to ensure all field are filled in correctly, Validation can be carried out dynamically via Javascript, or Post-Submit using a server side language

W

WAMP
WAMP is an acronym for a web platform consisting of Windows OS, Apache WebServer, MySQL database and PHP programming language

XHTML

XHTML
XHTML is a varient of HTML that is stuctured similarly to XML and uses the XML parse to serve better structured content, using HTML formatting