Jargon Buster

A

Absolute link

http://www.raspberryfrog.co.uk/resources/jargon-buster - This is an example of an absolute link. It specifies the transfer protocol (http), the domain name (raspberryfrog.co.uk) and often a file name and its directory (resources/jargon-buster).

Adaptive strategies

Techniques that people with disabilities use, with or without assistive technologies, to assist in navigating Web pages.

AdWords

Google's CPC (Cost Per Click) based text advertising. AdWords takes clickthrough rate into consideration in addition to advertiser's bid to determine the ad's relative position within the paid search results.

Alt text

Refers to 'alternative text' that is placed in the code for an image in an HTML page (in an ALT tag). If the image is not displayed, the ALT text can be presented instead. ALT text is especially useful to users with visual impairment who use a screen reader (speaking browser).

Anchor text

Anchor text is the actual text part of a link (usually underlined). Used by search engines as an important ranking factor. Google pays particular attention to the text used in a hyperlink and associates the keywords contained in the anchor text to the page being linked to.

Algorithm

An algorithm is an operational programming rule that determine how a search engine indexes content and displays the results to its users.

Assistive technology

Assistive technologies are software and hardware used by people with disabilities to help accomplish tasks that they cannot accomplish otherwise or could not do easily otherwise. Some assistive technologies rely on output of other user agents, such as graphical desktop browsers, text browsers, voice browsers, multimedia players, plug-ins.

ASP

Active Server Pages or ASP as it is more commonly known, is a technology that enables you to make dynamic and interactive web pages.

B

Black Hat SEO

Black Hat SEO is sometimes called spamdexing (the opposite of White Hat SEO). Black Hat SEO can be any optimization tactics that cause a site to rank more highly than its content would otherwise justify or any changes made specifically for search engines that don't improve the user's experience of the site.

Breadcrumb

A breadcrumb is a type of web navigation where current location within the website is indicated by a list of pages above the current page in the hierarchy, up to the main page. It not only shows users where they are currently located in the site's architecture, but it also lets them back up levels one at a time. It is a recursive path.

C

Card sorting

Card sorting is a categorization method where users sort cards depicting various concepts into categories. You start with a list of all the items you want sorted. Write down each item on a separate index card. Give your user(s) the stack of cards and have them divide the cards up into piles, telling them that the cards should be grouped the way they (the users) best see fit. This technique is best used in the early stages of development.

Cascading style sheets (CSS)

CSS describe how documents are presented on screens, in print, and even in spoken voice. Style sheets allow the user to change the appearance of hundreds of web pages by changing just one file. A style sheet is made up of rules that tell a browser how to present elements such as headings, paragraphs, or lists in a document. Numerous properties may be defined for an element; each property is given a value. Examples are font properties, color and background properties, text properties, box properties, classification properties, and units. The term cascading refers to the fact that more than one style sheet can be used on the same document, with different levels of importance.

Colour Deficiency

Colour deficiency is a lack of the ability to discriminate between colors. Designs that rely totally on color to convey essential information will be inaccessible to a small percentage of women and a larger percentage of men.

Cognitive walkthrough

A cognitive walkthrough is a review technique where you construct task scenarios from a specification and get a user to role play the part of walking through the task. They act as if the interface was actually built and they (in the role of a typical user) was working through the tasks. Each step the user would take is scrutinize.

Cross platform

Available for more than one type of computer. For example, a cross-platform program might be available for PC, OS/2, and Macintosh.

D

DOCTYPE

A DOCTYPE is a means of specifying what syntax a web page uses. Include a document type declaration at the beginning of a document that refers to a published DTD (e.g., the strict HTML 4.0 DTD). The document type declaration should be appropriate to the markup language you are using. It should appear at the very beginning of an HTML document in order to identify the content of the document as conforming to a particular HTML DTD specification.

E

Eyetracking

An eyetracking device observes a person's pupil to determine the direction of their gaze. It can aid in learning the relative intensity of a user's attention to various parts of a web page.

F

Focus groups

Focus groups are formal, structured events where you directly interact with users, asking them to voice their opinions and experiences regarding a website.

G

Graceful transformation

Where users can use web pages in different ways (with keyboard or mouse), and flexible so that they transform gracefully into intelligible and useful pages if particular technologies are not supported, or cannot be used by particular users or browsers.

H

Heuristic evaluation

Heuristic evaluation is where a group of usability experts scrutinize a website and evaluate each element of the site against a list of commonly accepted principles or rules of thumb. They apply their training and experience to conduct independent evaluations. Research shows that such evaluations can identify a majority of the usability problems, with the problem-identification percentage increasing as evaluators are added. The major drawback of heuristic evaluation is that evaluators, regardless of their skill and experience, remain surrogate users (expert evaluators who emulate users) and not necessarily typical users of the product.

HTML

HyperText Markup Language. The language used to create World Wide Web pages. This language is a type of coding that web browsers like Internet Explorer interpret as the text, pictures, and hyperlinks that we encounter when we use the web.

Hyperlinks

Text that has hyperlinks. When hypertext is viewed with an interactive browser, certain words appear as highlighted by underlining or colour; clicking on a highlighted link leads to another location with more information about the subject.

I

Image map

An image map is an image that has either a region or regions that act as a hyperlink. For example, think of an image of the state of Wisconsin. Each county of the state has been set as a hyperlink. When a user chooses this hyperlink region, he/she is linked to the web site for the county.

Inbound links

Links that point to your site from sites other than your own. Inbound links are an important asset that will improve your site's PageRank (PR).

Information architecture

Information architecture is the organization of information. This field studies how to organize information most effectively to help people find and use the information. It also refers to the structure or organization of a website, especially how pages relate to one another.

Interoperability

The ability of software and hardware on different machines to communicate with each other.

J

Java Script

A simple web scripting language from Netscape Communications, very popular because it is simple and easy to learn. JavaScript is not a stand-alone language, but rather a scripting add-on to HTML. JavaScript is added to HTML commands by use of the <SCRIPT> tag. Anything within this tag is (or should be) ignored by browsers that do not support JavaScript.

K

Keyword density

The number of times that a given keyword appears on a web page. The more occurences that a given word appears on your page (within reason), the more weight that word is assigned by the search engine when that word matches a keyword search done by a search.

Keyword research

Determining the words and phrases that people use to find something, then compiling them into a list for use on web pages, etc.

Keyword stuffing

Placing excessive amounts of keywords into the page copy and the HTML in such a way that it detracts from the readability and usability of a given page for the purpose of boosting the page's rankings in the search engines.

L

M

Multi-platform

Usable by several types of computers or operating systems.

N

O

Opera

An alternative to Internet Explorer or Netscape Communicator. The Opera browser provides similar functionality to the major browser types. It also provides several functions that designers can utilize when evaluating page accessibility.

P

Paper prototype

A paper prototype is a paper sketch of an interface with just enough detail to make design decisions and usability evaluations relating to the function and flow of the interface, not the look.

Persona

When creating a computerized user system, a designer will often develop personae with which to test and finalize the system. A persona substitutes for a real system user. Rather than testing with an average user profile, the designer gives the persona a realistic identity that corresponds to the target users of the system, including such things as a gender, age, address, biography, occupation, preferences, and even a photo if appropriate. A system scenario includes the persona itself and a representation of how that persona interacts with the system. Many scenarios are often required to ensure a system will work correctly with a variety of users.

Plug-in

An application that is downloaded and activated through your web browser. A common example is Adobe Acrobat Reader. A web designer may place content that has been scanned from a book or periodical on the web as a PDF. To access this file type (.pdf), a user must have downloaded a copy of the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. When the user attempts to open the PDF file, the web browser calls the Adobe Acrobat Reader into action. It opens the PDF and allows the reader to access the information. Other common plug-ins include: Quicktime, Real Player, and the Macromedia Flash player.

Q

R

Rapid prototyping

Rapid prototyping is the process of quickly generating mock-ups of what a website will look like.

S

Screen reader

Software used by individuals who are blind or who have dyslexia that interprets what is displayed on a screen and directs it either to speech synthesis for audio output, or to refreshable Braille for tactile output. Some screen readers use the document tree (i.e., the parsed document code) as their input. Older screen readers make use of the rendered version of a document, so that document order or structure may be lost (e.g., when tables are used for layout) and their output may be confusing.

Scripting

Programming code that is part of a web page. Examples include javascript and active server page coding (ASP), as well as a host of others. Most scripts perform a function that HTML can't do, such as inserting a date and time or calculating numbers.

Storyboard

A storyboard is a sequence of sketches showing major actions or outlining a process, such as the steps of interacting with a computer or website. They are commonly used in television and advertising. They are akin to paper prototyping. They are useful for presentations and for checking that the steps of a process make sense once the details are sketched.

T

Task scenario

A task scenario is a representation of actual work that a user would likely perform using a website. You use task scenarios to tell the participants of a usability test what you want them to do.

Taxonomy

Taxonomy is the study of the general principles of scientific classification. Information architects use this word to refer to labeling systems and nomenclature of things like the sections of a website or the ctaegorisation of content.

Text equivalent

An HTML attribute that displays a block of text as an alternative to an image, for text-based browsers. It is used inside the <IMG> tag; the format is <IMG SRC="url" ALT="text">.

Thinking aloud protocol

Thinking aloud is when users speak out their thoughts, feelings, and opinions while they are performing an assigned task. Thinking aloud helps you understand how users use a website and what considerations users keep in mind when using it. Thinking aloud gives insight into cognitive processes.

U

Universal design

Designing for the largest audience possible regardless of disability or ability to speak the native language. This is a process rather than an end in itself.

Usability

Usability is the art and science of designing systems or web sites that are easy to learn, easy to remember how to use, efficient to use, error tolerant and engaging. Usability and accessibility are often confused. Some believe that a usable site is accessible and vice versa. The two are not exclusive, but it is important to understand the difference. Usability means that a website is intuitive and easy to use. Accessibility means a website is as barrier-free as possible. Accessibility and usability are closely related, as they both improve satisfaction, effectiveness, and efficiency of the generic user population. But while accessibility is aimed at making the website open to a much wider user population, usability is aimed at making the target population of the website happier, more efficient, more effective.

Usability testing

Usability testing is the process of carrying out experiments to find out specific information about a design. It is part three of the "Usability Evaluation Toolbox". In usability testing, representative users work on typical tasks using the website (or a prototype) and the evaluators use the results to see how the user interface supports the users in doing their tasks.

User agent

Software to access web content, including desktop graphical browsers, text browsers, voice browsers, mobile phones, multimedia players, plug-ins, and some software assistive technologies used in conjunction with browsers such as screen readers, screen magnifiers, and voice recognition software.

User Centred Design (UCD)

The design process that places the user at the center of the design rather than the object to be designed. It is a philosophy and process rather than an end in itself.

V

Validation

Bringing an HTML-coded page into compliance with established HTML standards. There are a number of validation sites on the Internet that provide the service of checking an HTML page and identifying any problems. The reason for validating an HTML page is to make sure it can be read by the different browsers that are in use.

W

W3C

The World Wide Web Consortium was created in October 1994 to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability.

WCAG 2.0

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (part of the W3C).

WAI

Web Accessibility Initiative. The World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) commitment to lead the Web to its full potential includes promoting a high degree of usability for people with disabilities. WAI, in coordination with organizations around the world, pursues accessibility of the Web through five primary areas of work: technology, guidelines, tools, education and outreach, and research and development.

Web Standards

The term Web Standards refers to the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) specifications and guidelines. Complying with web standards is using technologies like valid XHTML and CSS according to W3C specifications. It is the only way to know that code won't fail as the syntax develops.The validation to web standards allows for future web compatibility. Most assistive and adaptive technologies are based on W3C standards. Error-free, well-formed, standards-compliant HTML is the foundation of an accessible Web site.

Wireframe

A wireframe is a skeleton version of a website that depicts navigational concepts and page content. It is is a set of cross-linked pages that acts like a functional prototype of the final website without the graphics. It is often with only sketchy text content. It is often accompanied by a tree diagram or flowchart of the website. It doesn't take into account visual design or page layout.

X

Y

Z