Introducing Weekly Web Minute, a new weekly series from Communicraft —delivering bite-sized, layman’s explainers on web terms for those who don't build web sites! 

No confusion. No guesswork. Just clarity..

What does UX mean?

UX refers to “user experience”, and commonly comes up in the context of user experience design. In a web context, this means designing how a user will interact with a digital product or tool such as a web site or “app”, as well as how it looks.

Continuing our Weekly Web Minute series of layman’s explainers with..

URL, domain name, same?

Not quite. A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the full web address used to access a specific item online such as a web page, an image, or a file. It includes the protocol bit (e.g., https://), the domain, and the path (e.g., example.com/page). A domain is just the core part of the address (e.g., example.com). In short: a domain is part of a URL.

Curiously, Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, told an interview with the New York Times newspaper in 2009 that the "//" bit was actually unnecessary and he could have designed URL's without them!

"There you go, it seemed like a good idea at the time," he said.

#WeeklyWebMinute

What is a 404?

Next up in our Weekly Web Minute series of layman’s explainers is the often heard and encountered "404" . For those of you who nod along sagely in meetings with only the vaguest of idea what that actually means Colm answers..

A 404 status code means the page you're trying to visit, or file you are trying to find, can't be located at the web address you entered. It often happens if the page or file was moved, deleted, or you typed the URL incorrectly. If you get a 404 on attempting to visit a webpage, you should double check the name was typed correctly. The server is working fine, that actual file just doesn't exist there.

What is a Sitemap?

Next up in our Weekly Web Minute series of layman’s explainers is the humble, but highly effective, "Sitemap".

In web design, a Sitemap is a diagram of a website that outlines the structure of the entire website at a high level, showing how pages are organised and connected. It helps designers plan navigation, content, and site layout.

Communicraft's Gerry Leonard notes, “not to be confused with XML sitemaps, which help search engines index pages, or user-visible HTML sitemaps, which help visitors navigate the site.”

Web design, Web development - What’s the difference?

Next up in our Weekly Web Minute series of layman’s explainers is something that comes up frequently when people in our profession are asked what it is that we actually do.. "It's something in computers isn't it?" 😊

Web design focuses on the visual look of the website, focusing on aesthetics and usability. Web development builds a website’s (or web application’s) structure and functionality, turning the design into a working reality. Both play an integral role in creating new websites and web applications.

What’s a Wireframe?

Continuing our Weekly Web Minute series of layman’s explainers with..

"Wireframes are a basic illustrative blueprint or outline of proposed features and functionality of a website or web application user interface. Since the focus is on functionality, they often exclude design details like colours, fonts, and images".

What is a Web App?

Continuing our Weekly Web Minute series of layman’s explainers with a quick explainer on Web Applications.

A web application, or “web app”, is a piece of software that can be accessed via a web browser much like you would a website. It usually offers more complex functionality and user interaction, such as online banking, hotel booking engines, social media or streaming services.

Colm from Communicraft adds: “Web applications are often the area behind the login form on a website, although they can also be the hidden engine that powers the content visible in the public sections too. In professional services and manufacturing they often take the form of a client portal, where they can form a central part of a digital transformation plan, allowing for the automation of services like account management, online trading and order management and professional service provision or facilities management. Web Apps allow businesses to operate online without requiring their clients or potential clients to download any additional software.”

For more on Web Applications see this post from our blog.

What is Information Architecture / IA ?

Next up in our Weekly Web Minute series of layman’s explainers for the kind of tech babble that we web folk sometimes use while assuming everyone knows what we are on about is..

Information Architecture, often abbreviated as "IA", in particular as it applies to web design and development, means the structure in which information is arranged and presented within a web site or web application.

It is often defined and described through sitemaps, wireframes, flow charts and specification documents, and is represented on screen through navigation menus and content structures like “breadcrumbs” or buttons or sliders - essentially how a user moves through a website or application.

To the end user it may be quite invisible, but a well planned information architecture can make a user’s experience of a website simple and efficiently guide users to what they are looking for or to what a website owner wants the user to be guided to.

What is an API?

Next up in our Weekly Web Minute series of layman’s explainers for the kind of thing some web dev will casually drop into a discussion triggering puzzled expressions in the meeting room is..

API is an abbreviation for “Application Programming Interface”, which is how a website, web application or piece of software can interact with other web software or services in the background over the web using code.

The word “interface” provides the clue here, where the “user interface” allows humans to interact with a web site or web application, the API allows interaction with and between software.

Colm adds..

“While some API integrations can be quite sophisticated and complex, such as those commonly used in business to business web applications like client portals or online trading systems, the ubiquity of APIs today means they will show up in almost every website in some shape or form, usually in the background, invisible or opaque to website or web application users. Every web user though will have come across embedded Google Maps, payment gateways like Stripe and Paypal, or embedded social media content and share buttons, all of these are powered by API”.

What is User Testing?

Next up in our Weekly Web Minute series of layman’s explainers for the not-so- everyday phrases that web dev folks sometimes forget are not-so-everyday for anybody else is..

User testing is a research process, often conducted in the early discovery and design or redesign stages of a web development project where designers observe how real users or customers interact with a website or app or prototype  to assess how user-friendly and intuitive the app or website is for its users in meeting their goals. It’s a critical step in designing new websites or applications as it allows the production team to witness how actual end users will engage with and experience the web application or websites from the end users’ perspective so as to fine-tune the design to improve the overall user experience.

If you have any questions or comments on any of our Weekly Web Minute explainers, or if there is any other web terminology that you feel could benefit from our layman’s explanations. Pop in the comments below.

Astound your colleagues by knowledgeably dropping relevant web phraseology into your business development, operations and design discussions! 🙂

Follow Communicraft on LinkedIn for weekly explainers from the web lexicon.

#WeeklyWebMinute