Glossary

The .NET framework is part of Windows and provides a controlled environment in which to develop and run applications. It means that programmers don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time, as the framework is furnished with a full library of functions and interfaces that applications can use, such as GUI, database access, cross-network communication and much more.

Accessibility matters. The web has the potential to be the most accessible medium in marketing, so it's important to remove any barriers that people might face in access. These could include confusing navigation, badly-named links, small target areas for clicks, poor colour contrast and so on.

It is now also a legal requirement under the Disability Discrimination Act that organisations should take reasonable steps to make their sites accessible.

An API (Application Programming Interface) is an interface implemented by a software program to enable its interaction with other software. It's the software equivalent of an interpreter.

App is short for ‘application program’ - a program designed to perform a specific function for the user.

 ASP.Net is a web application framework developed and marketed by Microsoft. Its presence means that programmers can build web sites, applications and services that are dynamic and accessible.

 C# is an object-oriented programming language designed by Microsoft and employed in its .NET platform as a simple, modern evolution of C.

Campaign previews mean that you can test your email design and build to make sure that it works within the varying parameters of PC, Mac and Mobile email clients. They also enable the developer to ensure that the email will be seen correctly by every recipient prior to delivery.

A CMS (or content management system) is an application that allows users (typically marketing or IT departments) to maintain a website's content without extensive technical knowledge or training. It stores a wide range of information assets including text, images and so on. Once loaded into the system, this information can be structured and displayed in a number of different ways: for example, a piece of content may appear in two different places on a site.

Content management systems can be made reasonably simple, very complex or anything in between. A whole host of CMS products are available, developed by providers such as Microsoft, the open source community and small development companies. With such a wide selection on offer, choosing the right CMS is an important decision for any organisation.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a computer language used to describe the appearance and formatting of documents written in a markup language such as HTML, XHTML, SVG or XUL.

Deliverability monitoring is software that allows the email broadcaster to see, in real-time, the success rate of their emails in reaching the recipients' email boxes and staying out of their junkmail folder. This information can then be used to 'tune' email content, time delivery and speed of delivery to maximise the number of successful deliveries and consequently improve response rates.

A dynamic email uses copy and content from a database to deliver a personalised piece of communication to the recipient. This is how emails from online retailers are able to address you by name and suggest items that you might be interested in, based on past purchases.

Functional specification takes place during the opening phases of a project. Merged with the site plan and wireframes, it helps to define all the features of the site including how key systems such as search or jobs modules might work.

Information architecture represents the structure of a website. The process for putting this together takes place during the opening phases of development, always with the aim of creating an effective system and a good user experience.

Integrated Services Digital Network or some such thing.

A landing page (or lead capture page) is what a potential customer will see when they click on your advertisement or search-engine result link. As well as being optimised for indexing by search engines, the page will usually display content (and a focused call-to-action) that is a logical extension of the advertisement.

A mashup is the very literal term given to a webpage or application that combines data or functionality from two or more external sources to create a brand new service.

MySQL is a relational database management system (RDBMS) that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. Chances are, you’ve already used MySQL today - Facebook, Google and Youtube all employ it.

Open source refers to programs whose source code has been made available for use or modification by other users and web developers. Historically, the makers of proprietary software have tended not to make source code available, but open source software is usually developed as a public collaboration and is thus made freely available for anyone who wants it - as a result making a whole range of web developments quicker and easier. Basically, it's online recycling.

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor is a widely-used, general-purpose scripting language that was originally designed to allow web developers to produce dynamic web pages.

Pixel-tracking refers to the use of a piece of code attached to a single, invisible pixel tag to monitor the activity of users and their reaction to advertisements. A great deal of useful marketing information can be gleaned using this technique.

pURLs (or personalised URLs) describe a fairly new application that lets you create a separate URL for every single person you're targeting, adding a more personal touch to your marketing campaign.

A requirements capture paints the picture of what a business is looking for in its new software application, taking into account the often-conflicting needs of stakeholders and users.  The result of this process is a complete description of how the resulting software should behave as well as its non-functional requirements such as performance needs, design constraints and standards required.

A requirements specification gives a developers a blueprint for the behaviour of the system to be created.

The site map gives an overview of all the component parts of a site, as well as the ways in which site visitors are channelled to the information they need.

An SQL server is any database management system (DBMS) that can respond to queries from client machines formatted in the SQL language. When 'server' is capitalised, the term generally refers to either of two database management products from Sybase and Microsoft.

The staging environment lets you move website assets within and across different environments with ease. For example, you could move a new webpage or marketing campaign from a test environment to a production environment. The chain of relocations can become quite long. In an enterprise deployment, you might define staging projects to move content from the development environment to the integration/test environment, from there to the staging environment, and from there to the production environment.

System design is the process (or art) of defining the architecture, components, modules, interfaces and data of a system in line with its specified requirements. Not a job for the faint-hearted.

A tag is a keyword or term assigned to a piece of information (such as an internet bookmark, digital image or computer file). It acts as a label for the item, allowing it to be found again in searches. Tags are usually chosen informally and personally by the item's creator or its viewer, depending on the system.

Taxonomy (also referred to as Vocabulary) is used to manage the information architecture of a website, linking together groups of folders that are then displayed within core areas of the website.  It is a tree-like hierarchy that users find intuitive.

A technical specification outlines the technical requirements of a site - including platform, system, hosting arrangements, customisations of existing code and bespoke programming requirements.

User-centred design, as the name suggests, is an approach to design which puts the user and their needs at the centre of content, feature set and structure decisions.

UX stands for 'user experience'. It's a term used to describe the overall experience and satisfaction a user has when using a product or system. Good UX makes people happy and makes businesses more successful. But if UX is ignored... Well, we shudder to think.

Web analytics cover the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet data for the vital purposes of understanding your audience and then optimising your campaign.

A web service is a set of tools used to combine and integrate web-based applications which share business logic, data and processes.

A web strategy is a long-term business plan for creating and maintaining a company’s online presence. Immediate needs and long-term goals will vary depending on the maturity of the business in question.

Widgets (also known as Desktop Widgets) are interactive virtual tools that each provide a single service. This single-purpose activity could be based around showing the user the latest news, the current weather, the time, a dictionary, a map program, a calculator, desktop notes, photo viewers or even a language translator.

Wireframes give an overview of the components and features of a web page. They're developed during the opening phases of a project and provide instructions to both designers and programmers on how pages should look and behave.

XML (or Extensible Markup Language) is similar to HTML in a lot of ways. They're both markup languages and they both identify elements in your webpage. The major difference between the two is that while HTML describes how your page looks and acts, XML describes the complete contents of your page. The upshot of this is that an XML document can be used in more applications than an HTML document, making XML a lot more versatile.