Web Development Glossary: 13 Terms Web Entrepreneurs Need To Know Before Meeting With The Dev Team

Knowing the everyday web industry terminology can help you better understand the process and development phases.

You have a clear idea about the website you want to create, but you are not sure your development team will understand you? Or, are you less familiar with the terms they use on the meetings?

Being familiar with certain terms your development team uses can help you to recognize the right moment to react or turn the course of the development.

But don’t worry! This is the list of the most used phrases and terms in the web and software development you should know.

Let’s dive into web development glossary!

#1 Agile

When you hire a development team, you’ll probably hear this buzzword quite often.

The term Agile has settled across the tech industry and refers to a work methodology.

Agile stands for working according to bi-weekly sprints where the entire team jointly designs, develops, tests, deploys and reviews the project.

In other words, if you are working with the team that develops product following the Agile methodology you will be able to see how a team thinks, develops a product and deploy features while being actively involved and engaged in the process.

During this process, you are able to review and make adjustments to a website or app before the initial launch, that is, before your product is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

#2 API

The term API is a common word in the development world and stands for Application Programming Interface.

In short, whenever developers mentions an API, they are looking for a way to connect two pieces of software for a singular purpose.

For example, if your website/product or service offers an online payment, the dev team needs to use some of the third-party payment services.

To connect your website to a third-party website, your dev team will take its API to make a connection.

#3 Bug

We hope you won’t hear this term often, but it’s inevitable. Having a bug refers to an error that prevents a website or an app from running as it should.

In the web development process, bugs are common part of the process as no project is the same.

Luckily, all dev teams have their own Quality Assurance people so the bugs can be fixed as soon as they encounter them. The bigger problem is when bugs impact UI or UX on the live project. However, all things can be fixed if you have a good development team by your side.

#4 Bootstrap

The consistency of HTML and CSS-based design templates for typography, forms, buttons, tables, navigation, modals and more, as well as JavaScript plugins, is achieved with Bootstrap.

Bootstrap is a framework used to achieve consistency across internal tools.

So, developers use Bootstrap to turn a design into a functional website.

#5 Cache

“Clear the cache” is a sentence you will hear quite often at the meetings with your development team.

The cache is a kind of storage of elements that ensures a faster load of the website for the repeating visitors.

To see the latest improvements on your website, new adjustments and changes, you need to clear a storage of elements.

#6 CSS

When you can only see a plain text without the images on your website, the issue is probably related to the CSS, which is not loading properly.

CSS tells the browser how the HTML elements should be displayed, which colors, font, and sizes, headings, and alignment are to be used and shown.

The CSS is responsible for the visual elements of your website and for the structure of the content.

#7 Content Management System (CMS)

The CMS is a software that allows you to control the website from the inside by organizing, managing, and controlling the content, media, design and users and access permissions, using an intuitive and user-friendly interface.

The majority of content management systems such as Drupal or WordPress are designed to simplify content management.

CMS is built to be flexible and enable you to customize the website according to your business needs.

#8 Deployment

At every meeting, you’ll be interested in seeing what has been deployed so far and which features you can see on your website.

Deployment is the final step in the web development process. The feature or any other part of the website is ready to go live once the team has it developed and tested.

#9 Frameworks

The rough definition of frameworks in the world of coding is that the frameworks are developed to make the building of the websites a faster and secure process.

Frameworks offer many good tools and effective solutions for developers to amplify your website.

Your dev team will probably use some of the powerful frameworks such as Symfony or Laravel, and JavaScript frameworks such as Angular and ReactJS.

#10 Plugin

If your dev team uses WordPress or Drupal for example, you’ll often hear the word plugins or Drupal modules. They are used to expand the power of your website.

Plugins and modules are part of the software that can be added as functionality or a feature.

Developers will probably use specific plugins or modules and it can be helpful to know which one they are going to use and why.

#11 Sitemaps

Before they start building a website, your development and design team will draw an outline of all the pages that will be part of your future website or project. Thus, a sitemap is the structure or list of all pages on a website.

Google and other search engines can better crawl your website when they “know” the organization of your website’s content.

Sitemaps are not only important for search engines, but also for users when they are searching for a particular page on your website. There are however two different sitemap formats, HTML sitemap for users and XML sitemap for search engines.

#12 MVP

The term MVP will pop in more than once in your everyday communication with the team.

The Minimum Viable Product is a product that can be released to the market.

If you adopt an MVP approach, keep in mind that developers will first focus on the core features and functions that are absolutely crucial. Afterward, once the product has been released and user feedback has been gathered, they will continue to build a complete set of features.

#13 Staging server

You’ll often hear from the team that new features or changes are available for testing on a staging server.

The staging server is a copy of your production environment (your current live website).

The QA engineers use the staging server as a testing environment because it is a replica of your live website (same hardware, same software, same settings). They test codes and updates before application deployment to a production environment.

Don’t forget to ask!

If you are not from the “tech world” be sure to ask for an explanation if anything you hear is hard to understand or imagine.

The dev team is aware of how progress can be speed up if each side knows what is going on. Don’t hesitate to ask questions. The outcome will surely be a better product and considerate collaboration.