Let's Communicate The Same Way: A Web Designer's Dictionary
Posted on
June 26, 2020


Let's all be honest. It's really difficult to understand all of the web designer's jargon especially if your website is on going and you wanted nothing but an update and just deliver all your wants and needs.

You're on your first time in committing on your first website and you find it so overwhelming that you even started hearing words you know you have heard before but in another way - a web designer's way. "Layout, responsive design, CTAs?" Yes. These are just some.

To make it easier for you to find out the most common words that you might encounter, we prepared and listed words from their dictionary. wink

1. Alignment

You might probably recognize this in documents or texts, but yes. It can also be used in website. Left, right, justified, centered.

2. Branding

If you thought that it is just for LOGO, you're wrong. This term can also be used through your website as well as for business cards, packaging and other materials you can use to promote your business. Branding is also considered an important one for maintaining your image.

3. Breadcrumb

This is not the one you use in cooking delicious meals in your kitchen. This is typically shows a user where that particular page lives within the site structure and is located on the top most part of the page. You might say Mission and Vision < About Us < Home.

4. Call to Action (CTA)

It literally calls you to do an action (which is to click a button) that will take you to another page or perform specific requirement just like clicking SIGN UP, DOWNLOAD or SUBSCRIBE TO A NEWSLETTER.

5. Color Scheme

This is where designers decide or suggest what are the colors that will completely fit your overall branding.

6. Copy

No. This is not the word use when you will somewhat duplicate a text or figures that you usually encounter. It is basically the term used for all the content you can see on your website including headlines and captions.

7. Footer

Just like a header, the footer stays the same page to page and is templated but it appears at the very bottom of every single page of the website rather than the top. This repeats your primary navigation and a call to action or two. Social media links are another popular item for website footers.

8. Header

Located at the top of each page of the website. The header typically looks the same and repeated from page to page. This is where you can see the logo and the pages of the website.

9. Hero Image

This term is used to describe the main image on your home page. A hero image may be part of a rotating image slider, or it may be a large static image.

10. Layout

You can consider this work as the entire design of your website. On this point, this is where the positioning of the logo, navigation, copy and images as performed and accomplished. The layout is the the foundation of a website’s design and is used to guide the user through the page.

11. Lorem Ipsum

In millennial's word, don't be 'shookt' if ever you will hear this word. This is just a dummy or the a mockup filled with Latin-looking text just in case there are no copy yet to fill your pages.

12. Mockup

A non-functioning graphic representation of a website. This is sort of a dummy too that was built on a Photoshop before actual development begins. This is also considered as the designer's first draft wherein it is more easier to adjust necessary details such as fonts and colors.

13. Navigation

This word ia used as the collection of links that allow users to “navigate” to other pages of your website. This is so called yoir website's 'menu.'

14. Responsive Design

Responsive design solves the problem that was created to avoid building separate mobile sites to fit of course, your tablets and mobile phones.

15. Search Bar

A typical magnifying glass that we see in every platform that we use as if we wish to find a certain word or phrase within. This cause less time searching and if a visitor us sure enough to search the information they wanted to know, they will no longer use the navigation, but just click the this functionality.

16. Placeholder

This term refers to the dummy images that will be used to represent images in your website. At some point, this is also referred to your website's 'dummy text.'

17. Typeface

You probably know these as “fonts.” In web design, designers may use eithet the terms typeface and font.

18. White Space

Yes. It is literally the empty areas that you're imagining that creates balance between elements on a page. If the designer just wanted to focus on elements like images and texts, they use this term.

These are just some and the typical words that you might hear from our creative designers, so let's all talk about the same way at the same page! Don't get confused and surprised next time you hear these words.