14 September 2009
Do you know your DNS from your CMS? Cookies from Breadcrumbs? This section will try to answer some of questions you may have regarding web design and terminology used in the development of a web site. Click each topic to learn more.

Do you know your DNS from your CMS? Cookies from Breadcrumbs? This section will try to answer some of questions you may have regarding web design and terminology used in the development of a web site. Click each topic to learn more.

Accessibility

Accessibility in the terms of website design and development is concerned with providing websites that everyone can use. No matter who your target audience is, a well designed website should be usable by all visitors and ensure that people with disabilities, visual or audio impairments can get the information they need from your website. The usability of your website covers a range of areas such as:

Clear visuals for colour blindness

Correct use of HTML so screen readers effectively read the website

Making buttons an adequate size for visitors with impaired motor skills

Bandwidth

Bandwidth is the name that is used for the speed of your connection and the amount of data that can be sent and received from your connection at any given time. Bandwidth is usually measured by kilobits and megabits per second. The term bandwidth also refers to the quantity of information and data that is sent to the site visitor each time they visit your site.

By creating an efficient website design that sends only the necessary information to the visitor, it ensures that content which is already downloaded can be re-used. This design philosophy also makes things easier when it comes to considering hosting packages since most hosting providers will limit the total quantity of data their servers will allow you to send each month.

Blog

Blogs are mainly used as a part of a website where you can regularly publish news, comments, diary entries or anything else you want a viewer to read. What makes it different from a news page is that you can write it in a more personal manner.

Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs is a trail of where you have been within the website and relates to the current page in a distinct section. It also allows you to see how the website is structured as you progress through the website. An example follows below:

Home > Portfolio > Logo Design

Browser

The browser is the software that runs on your computer and allows you to access web pages on the Internet. There are many different types of browsers that all display the same information, thanks to standards established by the W3C. The most common browsers used today are Internet Explorer and Firefox but there are many others out there such as Opera and Safari.

Each browser is slightly different in its capabilities and standards compliance. Part of the challenge of designing and developing websites is ensuring that the majority of browsers read and interpret the code correctly and produce the page as it was initially designed.

Content Management System (CMS)

A content management system is software that runs on the back end of a hosting server and allows an authorised user of the website to easily edit or change the content. Whether the content of the website text, images or media files (such as Flash or other videos), a good ontent management system allows the authorised user to change any or all of these aspects without requiring in-depth knowlegde of website design or having to go into the depths of the code.

Content management systems are very popular when used in conjunction with online shopping carts (Ecommerce), since it allows the site owner to easily update and change products available, their prices and even the pictures displayed on the website.

Cookies

Cookies are snippets of information that are saved on your computer which is used by the server when ever you visit the website. Cookies can often be mistaken for sessions which are a server side technology and is deleted when the browsers is closed. When a website remembers your password, preferences or items in a shopping cart, this is due to cookies that are stored on your computer. Cookies also have a hand in helping websites that you have previously visited to download faster.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

CSS allows a website designer to shape and style the appearance of your website. The CSS holds information about the website such as colours, fonts, layout and so on. CSS makes it easier to quickly change the items and also helps your website to download faster.

Another big advantage of the CSS design philosophy is that it allows the designers and developers to separate the data from the design. If the website was to be coloured in a different scheme for example, the only file that would require to be changed would be the CSS style sheet. This change then propagates across the entire site.

Domain Names

Your domain name is the name that represents you on the internet and it appears in front of the end extension such as .co.uk. A domain name is basically an IP address that is easier to read and remember as the IP address is a long number.

Domain names are registered with a domain registrar who then actually registers the domain name with one of the bodies that governs and administers certain domain names on the Internet.

DNS

The Domain Name System (DNS) associates various information with domain names; most importantly, it serves as the "phone book" for the Internet by translating human-readable computer hostnames, e.g. www.example.com, into IP addresses, e.g. 208.77.188.166, which networking equipment needs to deliver information. A DNS also stores other information like a list of mail servers that accept email for a given domain. By providing a worldwide keyword-based redirection service, the Domain Name System is an essential component of contemporary Internet use.

Ecommerce

Ecommerce is the practice of selling your goods or services online. An ecommerce website is a website that features your products online and can accept payment for them from various sources such as the highly popular Paypal to credit cards and more.

Flash

Flash is animation software that allow a designer to create various animations and movies. It is important to distinguish between Flash and Flash Player which is a stand-alone add on for nearly all Internet browsers. Flash Player is a free to install download available from Adobe and allows site visitors to view animations and videos created using Flash.

Flash also has a scripting language built into it and can be manipulated to provide 'intelligent'animations, videos and even entire websites that can react to, or make decisions based on, user input. For example, a Flash website may containt a video that features pause and rewinds buttons. The scripting language within Flash allows designers and developers to produce more interactive web applications as described above.

Hosting

Hosting refers to where your website is being held and which server the website is stored on. Servers are located all over the world and choosing a good server location used to be an important decision since you would want a server that is physcially near the site visitors.

Setting up your website on a certain hosting system involves re-directing the nameservers associated with your domain name (a setting that is changed through the company used to register the domain name). Once the nameservers have been set, all that remains is to upload the website and the content to the hosting system of your choice where it will then be publicly available.

HTML

HTML is a language that is used to structure the layout of a website. HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language.

Hyperlink

A hyperlink is a link to another area of your website or to another website that you may have a connection with. It is possible to make a hyperlink to any website on the Internet that can be found.

Keywords

Keywords are words that a user may type into a search engine such as Google. The keywords are held within the meta tags of your website. By using correct and descriptive keywords, this can help search engines know that you have relevant information on your website that the search user might want to know or see.

Navigation

To allow people to find there way around you website a coherent and intuitive navigation system is necessary. If your website is easy to navigate then it is more user-friendly and people will come back and visit your website again.

Organic Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Organic Search Engine Optimisation is concerned with what search engine users type into a search engine and search for, what results are generated and the position of your website amongst the results returned. The websites that the search engines feel have the most relevant information, relating to the search terms entered by the search engine user, in them will appear near or at the top of the list.

This is where the term SEO, search engine optimisation, originates from. One method of helping a websites search engine optimisation is by link building throughout your own website. Links need not be constrained to your own website however and links to other relevant websites helps boost your site up the page ranking. Another desirable advantage of this is that more and more websites point to your own either directly, or indirectly through a referral site.

Pay-Per-Click

Pay-Per-Click is a different type of search engine optimisation from organic search engine optimisation. It is where you pay a monthly fee to be listed in the sponsored links area of a search engine. The more you pay every time people click on your link the higher and/or more noticeable the advert for your website will be.

Server

The server is the place where the data for your website is stored. The server hosts your website so that when people either directly type your URL, go through a search engine or follow a link from another website, they will see the information that is stored on the server. It is all usually linked to a home or index page to welcome people to the website.

URL

URL means Uniform Resource Locator. The URL of the website is the full address of the website.

Usability

The usability of a website is deemed by how easy it is for a user to use such as find there way around the website and successfully achieve their goals while they are on the website.