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Operating since 1995, Web Technik is one of South Yorkshire's longest established and leading Web design
agencies.
Glossary of internet terms: This is intended as a simple guide to some of the basic terms used in connection with Web page design. |
A web page
A web page is a computer file made up of three basic elements; text, images and formatting/layout instructions.
The text and images are the content you expect to see when you view the page using a web browser.
The formatting and layout instructions are usually written in a language called HTML.
More complex pages can include other elements such as moving images and sounds, they can also use other command languages to supplement, improve or enhance the presentation of the page beyond the capabilities of HTML.
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HTML
HTML is made up of instructions to the web-browser explaining how to assemble and present the text and images.
HTML commands in the file making up a web page are written inside angle brackets <>.
For example, the command <b> instructs the browser to display a block of text in bold text and the command </b> is used to end the "display in bold" command.
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Browser
A browser is the generic name for the type of program you use on your computer to view web pages.
The two most common browsers are Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) and Mozilla Firefox.
There are technical differences between the two and you are strongly advised to ensure that your web-site works well with both.
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Firefox
Firefox is a web browser program. It is newer than MSIE although its origins lie in Netscape which was around long before MSIE.
Firefox was rapidly adopted by the more technically literate internet users, not only because it was faster then MSIE but also because it adheres to the international web-standards more closely.
Some web pages written with MSIE in mind will not work correctly in Firefox, this is because MSIE did not follow the standard.
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CSS
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets.
Style sheets are an enhancement to HTML, they are advanced page layout instructions.
Using CSS allows the content of the page to be separated from the appearance of the page. In HTML without CSS content and appearance are mixed up in the same file.
CSS usually leads to the underlying file sizes of web pages being smaller (so the website loads faster). The major advantage of using CSS is that the same style sheet can be used by many web pages. This means that by changing the CSS file the appearance of all those pages can be changed instantly.
Suppose you wrote all your paragraph headings on a 100 page web site in bold red text and your boss then said she didn't like red, please change it to blue. Without style sheets you'd have to make innumberable changes on all 100 pages. With CSS you'd just make a small change to the CSS file and it's all done.
More usefully you can link more than one style sheet to
a page so that someone with eyesight problems could click a link to have your entire website shown in larger text and a more contrasting colour scheme.
You can apply a special style sheet such that when a user asks to print the page all the text is changed to black on white and unncessary images are not printed.
At present the main features of style sheets are supported by most recent versions of web browsers but currently Firefox handles them best.
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Frames
Normally your browser will show you a single web-page.
There is an HTML command called frameset. The frameset command instructs the browser to load and display a second web page within the first and defines where in the first page the second is to be displayed.
Some designers regarded this as a good way to build a website without having to repeat the same content in every page, for example many web-sites have the same banner across the top of the page with buttons linking to the rest of the website. Using frames that could stay there as you move around the site, the navigation buttons could simply load different content into a frame making up the lower half of the page.
A page may contain multiple frames. There are very few occasions when frames represent the best way of achieving a particular aim and there are many reasons why frames should be avoided.
An example of a page using frames
An explanation of why frames are usually inadvisable
A common issues with Frames is that Search Engines may provide a link to just one of the several pages that go into making up the whole page you intend visitors to see. That piece of content, displayed on its own without the rest of the frameset can lead to some confused visitors. Typically a visitor will see the main textual content but without the site branding and navigation links.
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Flash
Flash is a product of a company called Macromedia, it can be used to construct interactive multimedia pages. Flash files can be embedded in normal web pages using special HTML commands. The results can be a rich and vibrant experience, however there are some major disadvantages of using Flash and many of the benefits can be delivered in other ways.
Properly used Flash can be a useful addition to a web designer's toolkit.
Used inappropriately it leads to websites that may look great but which are very frustrating to use. What I have in mind is those sites where you suspect there is a piece of information you want to access but in order to find it you have to sit through 30 seconds of special effects.
If presentation is more important than content - e.g. a promotional site for an artist or a pop-group, Flash is useful.
If it's more important that users can find information about your products and services quickly and easily then Flash should be used much more selectively.
The computer being used to view a website must have a browser with an embedded Flash viewer.
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PDF
PDF stands for Portable Document File. It is a well established file format output by Adobe Acrobat (although there are now other cheaper programs that produce good pdfs).
Many commercial computer products now come with documentation on CD as PDF files, Adobe allow free distribution of their file viewer on those CDs and it can be downloaded free from the Adobe website.
PDFs are often used on websites where there is a need to make information available which already exists in another format but either it would be difficult to convert to HTML or the cost of converting cannot be justified.
PDFs are also used for functions like making copies of a regular printed newsletter available on a website.
Most users will have had the newsletter on paper but an online archive is useful and can be provided at very low cost if the newsletter can be converted to PDF.
You might want to allow users to view a spreadsheet file but don't want to let them have the original with all your calculations (and in any case they might not have the same spreadsheet program as you to view the file).
A manufacturer may have a repository of specification sheets and operating manuals for a large number of products, very few visitors will need any specific document but all can be made available as PDFs on-line and for a low cost.
One advantage of a PDF is that the user should see exactly what the designer intended. With HTML it is very difficult to guarantee that.
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Keywords
Keywords are much misunderstood. A web page can include some information which is only intended to be used by search engines to help them deliver more useful results. One of these pieces of information is known as the keyword meta-tag.
The keyword meta tag is just a list of words the designer would like the search engine to use to index the page. (Actually the list can include short phrases too).
The idea is good, especially when you want the page found for some words that might not otherwise be on the page. For example you might have a page primarily intended for a British audience but you want US English visitors to see it too. Your UK English page would use UK spellings like "Colour", your keywords could include the US spelling "Color", you might be writing about "film stars" and for the US audience you could have a hidden key phrase "movie stars".
Sadly many people abused the keyword capability by filling it with, for example, names of pop and film stars so a site with no relevance to those would appear in the search results.
The most popular search engine, Google, disregards the keyword meta tags, other search engines might still use them but they don't rely on them and they no longer represent a useful tool.
Most designers will still add a keyword tag but in reality it's usefulness is questionable.
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Meta tags
See also "Keywords".
Meta tags are embedded in web pages but contain instructions which are nothing to do with visible page content page layout.
The most widely used meta tags are Keywords and Description. The Keyword meta tag is described elsewhere in this glossary.
The description meta tag is supposed to contain a brief (or or two sentences) summary explaining what the web page is about. Some search engines will display the content of the description meta tag in their search results (others disregard the tag and show a block of 20-30 words picked from the page which they consider most relevant to your search).
Another meta tag is "Robots", this is used to tell search engines which pages should or should not be indexed. In practise it is unnecessary to use this tag to tell the search engines you DO want a page indexed, they will usually index all the pages they can find. Occasionally there may be a page you do not want indexing, the robots meta tag is one way of asking them not to. (There is another method using a file called robots.txt and the best advice is to use both if you need to ensure a page is not indexed).
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Hypertext
Hypertext is a word coined to represent the text on a web page, usually in a contrasting colour and underlined which, if you click on it, will take you to another web page this hypertext link will take you to the Web Technik home page
That is a simplification, images can be used to take you to another page too and for that reason the word hyperlink is used in almost the same way. Also a hyperlink may just move you to another place on the same page like this go to top of page
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URL
URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. What it MEANS is the address of something on the internet. A website has a URL, this is the Web Technik URL: "http://www.webtechnik.co.uk/", this page has a more specific URL "http://www.webtechnik.co.uk/glossary.html" and our logo used as part of this page also has a URL: "http://www.webtechnik.co.uk/images/webtechlg.gif"
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GIF
GIF is the name of an image (picture) type used on the internet, it stands for Graphic Image File.
Because the Internet used to be accessed over quite slow connections it was important that web pages weren't too big. Visitors would get tired of waiting if a page took too long to load. Image files tend to be quite big and so various techniques were used to make them smaller. GIF was one of these, best used for images using flat colour and where it is important to show sharp borders.
The GIF format uses "lossless" compression, no information from the original image is lost it is merely stored in a better organised way.
GIF is ineffective at reducing the file sizes of photographic images.
Other image formats are JPG and PNG.
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JPG
JPG (or JPEG) is the name of an image (picture) type used on the internet, it stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group (when used as part of a file name the E is usually droped as file types are sometimnes limited to being 3 letters long).
Because the Internet used to be accessed over quite slow connections it was important that web pages weren't too big. Visitors would get tired of waiting if a page took too long to load. Image files tend to be quite big and so various techniques were used to make them smaller. JPG was one of these, best used for photographic images.
If JPG is used for images using flat colour or sharp borders you will see some fuzziness introduced. The JPG file compression process discards some of the information from the image (known as "lossy compression"). When creating a JPG the author can choose the level of compression and at high compression images can be severely degraded.
Other image formats are GIF and PNG.
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PNG
PNG is the name of an image (picture) type used on the internet, it stands for Portable Network Graphics.
The GIF image format (qv) was protected by a patent. That meant that a license fee had to be paid for any program which included the GIF compression technology. As a result the W3C (qv) web standards organisation created a replacement format, PNG.
Like GIF, PNG is lossless and it uses a better way of compressing images than GIF so PNG files are smaller than a comparable GIF. Unfortunately browser programs were slow to incorporate the ability to display PNGs and designers have only recently been able to start using PNGs in web pages.
Other image formats are GIF and JPG.
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W3C
W3C is the name of the intenational web standards consortium, it stands for World Wide Web Consortium.
W3C defines the standards to which web pages and browsers should conform.
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DDA
DDA stands for the UK Disability Discrimination Act.
The relevance of the DDA to websites is that the act specifies that providers of goods, services and facilities should "take reasonable steps to change a practice which makes it unreasonably difficult for disabled people to make use of its services.” Parts of the legislation do make it clear that Websites are covered by the act.
Some web designers have used the vagueness of the legislation as an opportunity to drum up new business with phrases like: "Your website is in breach of the DDA and you risk being sued". The most common approach is to consider the needs of blind or partially sighted users and many websites have for a long time included adaptations to help this group, however we have seen proposals stating that a website is in breach of the legislation because a mentally handicapped person would not be able to comprehend it.
The law speaks of "reasonable adaptations". The definition of "reasonable" has yet to be tested in court. Surveys of accessibility using the currently available test programs (which relate mainly to accessibility to the visually disabled) find vanishingly few websites which pass all the tests - even the RNIB website failed (tested in 2005).
We consider the first priority for a website is to provide good quality clear information and straightforward navigation. We aim to achieve that without disenfranchising any significant potential userbase. We do not regard adaptations which prevent us from presenting valuable content as "reasonable".
As an illustration of the interpretation of the law the DRC (Disability Rights Commission) ran some radio ads about the DDA. One "case study" was a hairdresser whose Salon could only be reached by a spiral staircase. The cost of installing a lift would have put her out of business, the DRC agreed that would be "unreasonable". Their "reasonable" solution was to provide a "home visit" mobile hairdressing service for anyone unable to manage the staircase.
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