Web Presentation Guide 5.1
Glossary

Accessibility: Hardware, software, Web sites, software applications or other types of information services that enable equal access to the public and employees; including individuals with disabilities.

Analytics tool(s): Tools or resources that help us understand Web site users, what they're looking for and how they look for it. Two common analytics tools are Web log files and Search log files.

Breadcrumbs/Breadcrumb Trail: a horizontal list of web site section headings that indicates where the current page is in relation to the web site's hierarchy. Breadcrumbs may also be active links to the specified sections of the site, permitting users to navigate upwards in the site hierarchy. Even without being hyperlinked, breadcrumbs can provide a visual cue to orient the user within the structure of the web site.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS): Cascading Style Sheets are a simple mechanism for adding style (e.g. fonts, colors, spacing) to Web documents. By using CSS, web designers can completely separate content from presentation. Not only does this ensure visual continuity to the user, it enables web designers to change the entire design of a site by modifying one style sheet rather than every page. Other CSS benefits include reduced page size and page loading time.

Client-side code: Software components such as: plug-ins, scripts, applets, or other types of code necessary to provide additional functionality for a Web site or Web-based application.

Compression artifacts: Visible degradations in a digital image due to overcompressing.

Conditions of Use: owner-defined and documented circumstances under which others may use your copyrighted materials without having to obtain written permission, while still protecting your copyright. Typical conditions include reproduction of materials for non-commercial and/or educational purposes.

Copyright: "the exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, and sell the matter and form (as of a literary, musical, or artistic work)" - from Merriam-Webster Online.

Distiller: Distiller is a simulated printer for converting PostScript files to Adobe PDF.

DPI: Printer's term for dots-per-inch

Encoding: Encoding requires special video capture hardware that takes a video signal and converts it to a compressed video file for placing on a streaming server.

External links: Links to Websites that are owned or managed by other agencies or organizations, including private non-governmental organizations.

Frame rate: The speed of video playback, which is about 30 frames per second (fps) for uncompressed files (too large for the Internet). For modem users, it is best to keep streams between 5 and 15 fps.

HTML: Hyper Text Markup Language

Hyperlink: An electronic link providing direct access from one distinctively marked place in a hypertext or hypermedia document to another in the same or a different document

Image resolution: The number of pixels per inch (ppi) in a digital image. For images viewed online, this can be safely set at 72 ppi.

Information architecture: "the art and science of organizing information to help people effectively fulfill their information needs"
(Alegre, http://www.sdcn.org/webworks/ia/).

Internet Markup Language: Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML) and HTML are common mark-up languages used for presenting information via the Internet. HTML is based on a limited, defined set of variables and has gone though various iterations to be able to deliver additional information like graphics, sound, and video. A Web browser, such as Internet Explorer or Netscape, interprets the HTML and presents the information to the user

Lossless Compression: A class of data compression algorithms that allow the original data to be reconstructed exactly from the compressed data. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossless_data_compression)

Lossy Compression: A lossy data compression method is one where compressing a file and then decompressing it retrieves a file that may be different to the original, but is "close enough" to be useful in some way. This type of compression is used frequently on the Internet and especially in streaming media and telephony applications. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossy_data_compression)

Monitor resolution: The number of pixels per inch (ppi) displayed on a computer monitor. This setting is fixed and cannot by changed by the user.

Multicasting: A "live" stream sent out to multiple viewers in real-time instead of from a file that is stored on a server and sent out when requested.

Orphan files: Files not linked from an existing page.

PDF: Portable Document File

PDFMaker: A simulated printer for converting Microsoft Office documents to Adobe PDF

Plug-in: A "live" stream sent out to multiple viewers in real-time instead of from a file that is stored on a server and sent out when requested.

Primary users/user groups: Although most Web sites serve users with diverse backgrounds and needs, designers often build sites, which focus on a primary type of user. As a result, they concentrate their research on representatives of the primary user group. Selection of a primary user group will influence content, functionality, appearance and design. Site designers often choose primary user groups based on the belief that improving their Web experience will improve the Web experience for other user types.

Profiles/personas: Web designers use profiles/personas, based on real-world data, to understand user needs, communicate and understand their common goals and recruit test participants for a usability study. Designers develop personas from the results of Web log file analysis, such as visited pages and popular keywords, which help to profile users.

Public Domain: "the realm embracing property rights that belong to the community at large, are unprotected by copyright or patent, and are subject to use by anyone" - from Merriam-Webster Online.

Public records: Any paper, correspondence, completed form, bound record book, photograph, film, sound recording, map drawing, machine-readable material, compact disc meeting current industry ISO specifications, or other document, regardless of physical form or characteristics, and including such copies thereof, that have been made by or received by any agency of the state of Washington in connection with the transaction of public business, and legislative records as described in Chapter 40.14 RCW.

Reflow: You can reflow a PDF document to read it on handheld devices, smaller displays, or standard monitors at large magnifications, without having to scroll horizontally to read each line. The Reflow command facilitates the reading of documents; reflowed documents can't be printed or saved. When you reflow an Adobe PDF document, some content carries into the reflowed document and some doesn't. In most cases, only readable text reflows into the reflowed document. Readable text includes articles, paragraphs, tables, images, and formatted lists. Text that doesn't reflow includes forms, comments, digital signature fields, and page artifacts, such as page numbers, headers, and footers. Pages that contain both readable text and form or digital signature fields don't reflow. Vertical text reflows horizontally.

Screen display setting: This controls how many pixels are displayed on the screen. This setting can be controlled by the user, and is typically set at 800x600 or 1024x768. This setting, along with monitor resolution and image resolution, controls the absolute size of the images displayed on the monitor.

Search Engine: A program that searches documents for specified keywords and returns a list of the documents where the keywords were found. Although search engine is really a general class of programs, the term is often used to specifically describe systems like Alta Vista and Excite that enable users to search for documents on the World Wide Web and USENET newsgroups.

Typically, a search engine works by sending out a spider to fetch as many documents as possible. Another program, called an indexer, then reads these documents and creates an index based on the words contained in each document. Each search engine uses a proprietary algorithm to create its indices such that, ideally, only meaningful results are returned for each query. (www.webopedia.com)

Section 508 Standards: A comprehensive set of general, technical, and functional standards that apply to Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to individuals with disabilities.

Think out loud: Occurs in usability testing when we ask participants to share what they're seeing and thinking, while using a Web site. Read a sample script with instructions for thinking out loud.

Think out loud sample script

Undue burden: According to Section 508, “Undue burden means significant difficulty or expense. In determining whether an action would result in an undue burden, an agency shall consider all agency resources available to the program or component for which the product is being developed, procured, maintained, or used.”

Usability: Web usability measures the effectiveness and efficiency of a Web site. Usability also evaluates the satisfaction of site visitors. We can only measure Web site usability with direct input from primary users.

Usability study: Usability studies return information related to how well typical, unassisted customers find what they need on your Web site. Usability testing determines whether or not users understand what they find and calculates how long users take to reach specific information.

User interviews: If you plan to conduct usability studies, make sure participants match the profiles of your representative users. Whether you or a professional recruiter conduct the interviews, it is important to ask questions that match prospective participants to the profile of your representative users. Internet skills, family size, education level, gender, age and economics are all possible demographic factors to consider during user interviews.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG): The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) guidelines for creating accessible Web content. The WCAG guidelines are organized by priority and provide checkpoints to assist Web developers to create accessible content.

Work made for hire: "a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or (2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use" - from www.copyright.gov.

XHTML 1.0 is the latest World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation for creating Web content. XHTML document types are XML-based, and are designed to work with XML-based user agents. XHTML is extensible and allows for additional sets of variables to be created so that additional content can be delivered via the Web.

Three flavors of XHTML 1.0 are used to create Web-based content:

• XHTML 1.0 Transitional - Used for Web pages written for the general public.
• XHTML 1.0 Strict - Used for clean structural markup, free of any markup associated with layout. Use this together with W3C's Cascading Style Sheet language (CSS) to get the font, color and layout effects needed.
• XHTML 1.0 Frameset - Use this when frames are used to partition the browser window into two or more frames.