We don’t speak for everyone, but for some of us, web designing is the most intimidating category of design. And we think it’s because there are a lot of technical web design terms involved.
Newbie marketers who want to get their websites up and running, sometimes back down, or procrastinate when they don’t know what to ask for. And if you’re a newbie marketer, your worries are about to disappear.
In this blog, we hope to dissect essential web design terms. Not only that, but we hope to clear up the confusion surrounding some of those web design terms.
But first, let’s take a look at why learning web design terms matters.
Websites are not a one-size-fits-all kind of deal. Different industries and niches require specific types of web designs. Different essential parts must come together to create the perfect most suitable website.
If your website falls below the line, it’s no excuse to say you’re a newbie marketer. That wouldn’t matter. This is why it’s important to know the right web design terms to communicate exactly what you want.
A professional web designer might indeed provide some input in such cases, but even so, you would need to know the right web design terms to understand and respond to them with your comments and feedback.
When both parties – you and the web designer are on the same page you can create the exact website you want, paired with the expert touch of a professional web designer.
And with that, let’s check out the list of web design terms you need to know.
In this section, we aim to provide the simplest explanations of essential web design terms. For some of the terms, we will provide visual examples that will make the term even more comprehensible.
A custom web design is when a website is created from scratch with a client’s unique needs and preferences in mind.
A website theme is also called a website template. Both web design terms refer to ready-made web design templates or frameworks that help build websites much faster than designing from scratch. WordPress and Wix are 2 of the well-known providers of website themes.
One of the downsides is that it’s hard to customize such ready-made themes.
CMS refers to software that allows users to create, manage, and modify content on a website without needing to write code. It’s a collective term to refer to applications like the previously mentioned WordPress and Wix.
In web design terms, the website front end refers to the part of the website that users will interact with directly. This would include all the visual elements like layout, typography, buttons, images, navigation menus, and any other interactive features displayed.
It should be noted that a web designer is the one who designs all of the above-listed elements, but it’s a front-end developer who takes those design elements and brings them to life by coding them using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. (HTML provides the structure, CSS adds the style, and JavaScript brings interactivity to create a complete, functional website.)
There’s also another term called the website back end. This refers to the part of the website that users don’t see and interact with. The back end includes things like the server, database, and application that all work together to make the website work smoothly.
A basic visual guide that represents the skeletal framework of a website, showing the layout and structure without the final design elements like colors or fonts.
If a website has many pages a web designer will request a wireframe from clients to ensure that they understand where everything needs to go as per the client’s unique requirements.
In web design, a website mockup is what helps you visualize what a website will look like once it’s fully designed and developed. It’s simply a static preview. In case you were wondering, the mockup is usually created before the development stage.
Here’s an example:
Typography is a crucial part not just in web design but in all categories of design. It’s the style and appearance of text on a website, including font choice, size, spacing, and alignment. Following proper typography rules plays a significant role in readability and design aesthetics in all design categories.
Similar to typography both it and white space are web design terms common to all branches of design. White space is not necessarily ‘white (color) space’. It’s simply the empty spaces between design elements. These design elements could be images, text blocks, and even letters.
Similarly, in web design, white space refers to the empty areas between elements like texts, images, buttons, and other visual components on a web page.
The right use of white space will ensure a web page is readable, clean, and organized.
A favicon is a small icon appearing next to a website’s title in a browser tab, used to strengthen brand recognition and make the site easily identifiable.
Like this:
Favicons are usually sized at 16x16px. A professional designer will know how to help you create one.
But ideally, creating favicons in multiple sizes will ensure you will see the properly scaled version on larger screens than just a stretched-out version of the 16x16px version. This is a crucial part of responsive web design.
This term refers to an approach to web design. What it does is ensure a website looks good and functions well across a variety of devices, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
From a web designer’s point of work, they will carry the responsibility of designing with flexibility in mind. This includes creating flexible layouts where they will avoid fixed-width layouts and use relative units like percentages instead of fixed pixel values for width.
Web designers will also use grids and breaking points, flexible image settings, and optimized typography to implement responsive designs.
Another very important approach to responsive design is to focus on mobile-first designs.
Mobile-first design is a design strategy that prioritizes the mobile version of a website, ensuring that it is optimized for smaller screens before scaling up to larger devices.
This is an important approach as mobile is the top device used to access the internet. Statista reports a whopping 95.9% access the internet via mobile phones. So it’s imperative to create mobile-first websites.
Web accessibility in web design terms refers to designing and developing websites so that all users, including those with disabilities, can access and interact with the content effectively.
Designing for accessibility involves a lot of mindful design choices. But these will reflect well on you as your brand will be considered an accessible brand.
You may have heard of these web design terms often. User Interface or UI as it’s commonly abbreviated is the visual elements of a website, including buttons, icons, spacing, typography, and images, that allow users to interact with the digital product.
On the other hand, user Experience or UX is the overall experience a user has when interacting with a website, including how easy it is to navigate, how quickly it loads, and how intuitive it feels.
Both UX and UI contribute to making a website functional as well as aesthetically pleasing.
A call to action in web design is typically a button or link that encourages users to take a specific action, such as “Sign Up” or “Learn More,”. It’s typically designed to stand out on a webpage and is often designed to look like a vertical literal button as shown below:
Above the fold or the hero section is the part of a webpage that is visible without scrolling, often considered the most valuable space for engaging users. It’s the first thing you see when you land on a web page.
It contains things like a hero image or a video, a headline, a sub-heading, a text body, a CTA, and anything else that’s valuable to hook site visitors immediately.
Here’s an example:
If you navigate to the GoPro website you’ll notice how all the crucial details are displayed above the fold. Additionally, everything below is called the below-the-fold section.
The hero image is the main image that goes on the above-the-fold section of a website. It’s often an oversized image that takes up most of the space in that particular area more often than not, accompanied by a headline.
Here’s an example:
A home page is the main or first page of any website. Once someone types in a website URL and hits enter, they will land on your homepage. The homepage is what provides visitors an overview of your website. It’s also the page that helps guide visitors to different sections of your website.
The web design terms home page and landing page are sometimes confused with each other. While we’ve already covered what the homepage is, a landing page is a standalone web page designed specifically for a marketing or advertising campaign, to drive a particular action, such as filling out a form or making a purchase.
Simply, a homepage is for general navigation whereas a landing page is for driving a single, specific action.
In web design terms the navigation bar refers to a set of links typically located at the top of a website that allows users to easily navigate between different sections of the site.
A drop-down menu is a navigational element that reveals a list of options when a user clicks or hovers over a main menu item, allowing for additional links without cluttering the interface. It can be a subset of a navigation bar.
A type of navigation menu typically represented by a three-line icon (resembling a hamburger), often used on mobile devices or smaller screens to hide the main navigation links until clicked or tapped.
It’s great for sites like the above example where you need to keep it chic and the clutter to a minimum.
This comes in handy as a secondary navigation system for websites with a large number of items. The breadcrumb navigation shows users their location within the website’s hierarchy which is typically displayed as a horizontal list of links (e.g., Home > Products > Category > Item).
Here’s an example from the Fiverr website:
The mega menu is a large, expandable menu that displays many options, often grouped into categories, providing users with an overview of the site’s content in a well-organized way. It’s common for websites that offer multiple services.
The sticky menu is a navigation menu that remains fixed at the top of the screen as users scroll down the page. It makes it easier to access links without needing to scroll back up.
The footer is the bottom section of a webpage and usually contains links to important pages like the privacy policy, terms of service, and contact information, as well as social media icons.
It’s a vertical column that appears alongside the main content of a webpage, often containing secondary navigation, advertisements, or additional features like recent posts or filters.
In web design terms it refers to a vertically stacked list of items that expands to reveal more information when clicked or tapped, commonly used in FAQ sections or to manage long lists of content.
It’s a type of navigation where content is divided into multiple sections, with each section accessible by clicking on a tab at the top or side of the content area.
The hover state in web design terms is the visual change that occurs when a user moves their mouse over a clickable element, such as a button or link, often used to indicate interactivity or focus. See the example below.
Before hovering:
This is a pop-up window that overlays the main content of a webpage typically used to grab attention for important messages, forms, or actions, like signing up for a newsletter or confirming a purchase.
Here’s an example:
In web design terms, this is the navigation system at the bottom of a content-heavy webpage, such as a blog or e-commerce site, that divides the content into multiple pages, usually with numbered links or “Next” and “Previous” buttons.
The slider is a design element that displays multiple images or pieces of content in a rotating format, often with arrows or dots to manually switch between items. It’s commonly used in galleries or featured content sections.
The flyout menu is another type of menu in web design that slides or “flies out” from a side of the screen when triggered, providing additional navigation or options without taking up space on the main interface.
And that’s the last one. Let’s wrap up.
These 35 web design terms will surely come in handy when you need to explain to your web designer what type of things you need on your website.
The more you engage with these web design terms, the more you will get familiar with them. So we encourage you to go through them a few times over to fully grasp them. Even now, you may feel less confused about some of these terms.
So next time you decide to craft a brief for a website design, be sure to use the right web design terms to keep communication streamlined and confusion at a minimum.
