Web Development Glossary for Small Businesses

GIF: The Graphics Interchange Format, created by CompuServe in the early days of the Internet as a way to compress image files for faster transmission. GIF files are limited to a 256 color palette.

Global Measures: A company's set of financial and operational measurements that are used to portray the company's overall performance. Cash flow statements, net profit and Return on Investment (ROI) are typical global measurements. Global measurements help management from falling into the trap of the "silo effect" - prioritizing department success over the the overall company's success.

Graphic Backgrounds: The underlying background flat color or image layer of a web page's graphic design. Business website developers have the ability, with CSS, to change a background graphic across an entire website without editing any of the individual HTML web pages.

Graphic Design: In web design, graphic design is the images, color scheme and typography that creates the look and feel of a website.

HTML - Hypertext Markup Language
A text and layout-formatting standard controlled by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) used to create and interpret web pages on all computer platforms. HTML code dictates the placement, treatment and interpretation of such web page elements as animation, audio, frames, graphic images, headings, hyperlinks, and paragraphs.

Hawthorne Effect: The effect of placing value or special treatment on employees as a way of boosting productivity. The term comes from a study conducted at the Western Electric Hawthorne Works plant in the 1920s found that when lighting levels increased, worker productivity increased. The researchers then lowered lighting levels below the original level to verify that lighting levels affected productivity. However, instead of decreasing as expected, researchers found that productivity increased again. After further testing with positive and negative changes in the workers' environment found all changes induced gains in productivity, the researchers postulated that getting specialized treatment by the company rather than changes in light levels were the cause of productivity increases.

Headings: The dominant element on a web page that serves as either the title or subheading in the content. Headings are called out in the page's HTML/XML code with a tag and are usually defined (color, size, font, etc) in the Cascading Style Sheet.

Hedge: To reduce business risk by taking steps that should counter all or part of any potential business or market loss or setback. A common online marketing hedge is to start two or three web sites, with each website focusing on particular keywords/aspects of business. For example a bank may have its main website and then launch ancillary websites for its auto loan and home loan business/keywords.

Horizontal Scrolling Bar: A scrolling that appears at the bottom of a browser window when the viewed website is too wide for the monitor size or resolution setting. In web design it is better to avoid sizing a web page width that needs a horizontal scrolling bar to view. Many web designs use a 750 pixels width assuming that most monitors are 15" screens. CSS layouts that allow for fluid sizing also help eliminate horizontal scrolling.

Hosting Service: A commercial Internet web server that stores websites and transmits the website files upon the request of client computers (web surfers). A hosting service uses many servers to store websites, firewalls and anti-spamming software as well as off-the-grid power supplies to protect its clients' ability to stay online (typically) 99.9% of the time. The two types of service are: "shared" where multiple websites share one server, or "secure" where only one website is hosted on a server.

HTML/XML Editor: A software program used for creating and changing the content of HTML pages. Simple text editors such as Notepad can be used in conjunction with a web browser to check your work. Robust HTML/XML editors like Adobe's Dreamweaver or the open source Amaya WYSIWYG HTML editor designers the choice of editing in code view or design view. They have the added capacity of checking the validity of the HTML, XML and CSS code.

Hurdle Rate of Return: The minimum projected or acceptable rate of return that a proposed business project or new business venture must show the potential of achieving before a company will proceed funding or approving the project or business venture.

Hybrid Web Design: Web designs using both table layout and CSS divisions in the website's layouts.

IP: The Internet Protocol is a set of rules and specifications for encoding, transmitting and routing information electronically over the Internet. The dual acronym TCP/IP, stands for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol and are coupled since they are used together.

IP Address: The unique set of four numbers separated by decimal points (ex. 209.131.36.159) that creates the number address used to identify computers on the Internet. Servers have a unique address, whereas home users may share the address of the common commercial server used to access the Internet.

ISP: A business that charges a fee to customers who use their servers to access the Internet. ISPs usually also offer email and hosting services to customers.

IT: The business area that includes all products and services tasked with automating the gathering, storing, processing, retrieving and analyzing of data. An area of business sometimes thought to be better protected by a "smoke wall" than any firewall known to management.

Index Page: Normally termed the home page, this is the first page of a web site that search engines like Google or Yahoo index (along with the sitmap.xml page) to determine a website's relative page hierarchy and main keywords.

Indirect Labor: Employees who provide support to manufacture of the company's products, but do not directly work in manufacturing process. Indirect labor includes accounting, maintenance, management. Sometimes incorrectly used to describe workers who, if they do any work, appear to do it by accident.

Image Map: An image map is the mathematical points that determine an area of a graphic image that is hyper-linked to another web page. A way to use a graphic image as a visual navigation element.

Inbound Link: Links on an external website that send web visitors to your website when clicked. Inbound links are factored by search engines when ranking your websites popularity as an information resource on the Internet.

Index: A search engines' database where all the text and image content from websites crawled by search engines' spiders is stored and categorized.

Information Architecture The aspect of web development that organizes how and where content is placed on a web page or within a website. Beneficial information architecture helps web visitors find the business' information quickly.

Interactive Web Design: A website design that prompts an action from a web visitor. A "Click here" button or a form that, once filled out and submitted, allows a web visitor to receive an ebook, is an example of an interactive design.

Intermediary Organization: Organizations that encourage, promote, and facilitate business-to-business networking and mentoring partnerships. Examples of these nonprofit and for-profit organizations are chambers of commerce; trade associations; local, civic, and community groups; state and local governments; academic institutions; and private corporations. Having links on an intermediary organizations website can increase business directly as well as improve search engine ranking and increase business indirectly.

Internal Links: Internal links are hyperlinks that serve as cross references between a website's internal pages. This allows navigation to different pages within a page's content without relying on the formal navigation buttons. Internal linking strategy is part of SEO optimization.

Interstitial Ad: An online marketing ad that opens up in a separate browser window, also known as pop-up ads.

Inverted Pyramid Copywriting: Due to the nature of search engines' indexing behavior and the rapid stay/go decision making of web visitors, web copywriting places conclusions at the top of a web page, then important backup facts are delineated and finally any background information is given. This is an inversion of the "logical steps" way of giving information.

Iterative Design Iterative web development is a cyclical design process with three distinct stages: create, assess, and tear down. Over time the website gets to a point where all parties are happy or everyone gives it an OK instead going another round and risk killing each other.