The jargon can
wait outside.
A working glossary. Ordinary explanations for the words that turn up in website conversations.
- Accessibility
- Designing and building so more people can perceive, understand and use the website, including people with disabilities.
- Call to action
- The next useful action you invite someone to take: request a quote, read an example or start a conversation.
- Canonical URL
- The address you identify as the preferred version of a page. It is a signal, not an instruction that search engines must obey.
- Content hierarchy
- The order and emphasis that help someone understand what to read first and what comes next.
- Conversion
- A defined useful action. It could be an enquiry or purchase. A click is not automatically a sale.
- Design system
- Reusable decisions and components that keep the interface coherent, rather than inventing every button again.
- Domain
- The website address people recognise, such as digithat.com.au. It is separate from the service hosting the files.
- Hosting
- The infrastructure that makes website files and services available online.
- Information architecture
- How the pages and information are organised so people can find what they need.
- Progressive enhancement
- Keeping core content and tasks available, then adding richer features where the browser can support them.
- Responsive design
- A layout that adapts to the available screen space. It is not just a desktop page made smaller.
- SEO
- Search engine optimisation: helping search engines discover and understand useful, relevant pages. It does not guarantee rankings.
- UI
- User interface: the visible controls and presentation people interact with.
- UX
- User experience: the person’s overall experience of understanding and using the website.
- Viewport
- The area of the browser available to display a page. We use matching viewport sizes for fair concept comparisons.
- WCAG
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines: a technical standard for web accessibility, not a badge an automated score can award.
Plain-language learning definitions. For technical requirements, follow the references in the relevant lesson.