Glossary
Design, website and AI terms, in plain English
This glossary defines the design, website, SEO and AI terms that come up when a SaaS or tech company rebuilds its site, launches a product or briefs an agency. Each entry gives the short answer first, then why it matters, how we handle it at DesignMe, an example and the mistakes we see most.
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Showing 47 of 47 terms
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A
A/B testing
A/B testing is an experiment that splits live traffic between two or more versions of a page to see which performs better on a chosen metric. Each visitor sees one version, chosen at random.
Above the fold
Above the fold is the part of a web page a visitor sees before scrolling. Its exact height changes with every screen, but it still gets the most attention on the page.
Activation
Activation is the moment a new user first gets the core value of a product, often called the aha moment. Teams measure it as a specific in-product event, such as creating a first project or inviting a teammate.
AEO (answer engine optimisation)
AEO, answer engine optimisation, is the work of getting your pages cited in answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google's AI Overviews. It builds on SEO: a page has to be found and read before it can be quoted.
AI agent
An AI agent is a system in which a language model decides its own next steps and uses tools, such as search, a CMS or a code editor, to complete a task. A fixed AI workflow, by contrast, follows steps a developer wrote in advance.
Astro
Astro is an open-source web framework for content-driven websites. It renders pages to HTML on the server or at build time and ships no client-side JavaScript unless a component needs it.
B
Brand guidelines
Brand guidelines are the documented rules for using a brand: logo usage, colour, typography, imagery, layout, voice and tone, with real examples. They let anyone on the team produce work that looks and sounds like the same company.
Brand identity
Brand identity is the full system a company uses to present itself: its positioning, personality, voice, visual identity and behaviour. It is the part the company designs and controls; the brand is how people end up perceiving it.
C
Canonical URL
A canonical URL is the version of a page search engines treat as the main one when the same content is reachable at several URLs. You suggest it with a rel="canonical" link, but Google makes the final choice.
CMS (content management system)
A CMS (content management system) is software that lets a team create, edit and publish website content without code. It stores content in structured fields and turns each entry into a page through a template.
Component library
A component library is the collection of reusable interface parts, such as buttons, inputs, menus and cards, with all their variants and states. It lives in design files, in code, or ideally in both, and is the most visible part of a design system.
Conversion rate optimisation (CRO)
Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is the practice of raising the share of visitors who take a page's key action, such as booking a demo or starting a trial. It combines analytics, user research and controlled experiments.
Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are Google's three metrics for real-user page experience: Largest Contentful Paint for loading, Interaction to Next Paint for responsiveness, and Cumulative Layout Shift for visual stability.
D
Design system
A design system is the shared set of design tokens, reusable components, patterns and rules a team uses to design and build a product consistently. It usually pairs a Figma library with matching coded components and documentation.
Design tokens
Design tokens are named values for design decisions such as colour, spacing, typography and radius, stored in a tool-neutral format. Design files and code read the same tokens, so one change updates every screen and theme.
F
G
H
I
Information architecture
Information architecture (IA) is how a website's or product's content and features are organised, structured and labelled so people can find what they need. Navigation menus, sitemaps and URL structure are all built on top of it.
ISO/IEC 27001
ISO/IEC 27001 is the international standard that sets the requirements for an information security management system (ISMS). Companies can be certified against it by an accredited certification body.
L
Landing page
A landing page is the page a visitor arrives on after clicking an ad, email or link. In marketing it usually means a focused page built around one offer, one audience and one action.
llms.txt
llms.txt is a proposed convention for a Markdown file at a site's root (/llms.txt) that gives AI models and agents a short summary of the site and links to its most useful pages.
Lottie
Lottie is an open-source animation format from Airbnb that plays After Effects animations, exported as JSON, natively on the web, iOS and Android. Files stay small and sharp at any size because they are vector.
M
MCP (Model Context Protocol)
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard for connecting AI applications such as Claude or ChatGPT to outside tools and data. A service publishes an MCP server once, and any compatible AI app can use it.
Motion design
Motion design is the craft of animating graphics, interfaces and video to explain an idea, guide attention or give feedback. For SaaS it covers launch videos, product explainers, website animation and UI motion.
MVP (minimum viable product)
An MVP, or minimum viable product, is the smallest version of a product that real users can use and that teaches the team whether the idea works. It is built to learn, not to be the finished product.
P
Pricing page
A pricing page sets out what a product costs, what each plan includes and how to buy or talk to sales. On a SaaS site it usually combines plan cards, a feature comparison table and answers to billing questions.
Prompt engineering
Prompt engineering is the practice of writing and testing instructions for an AI model so it reliably produces the output you need. It covers the task, context, examples, format and the checks used to judge the results.
Prototype
A prototype is an interactive model of a product or flow, from clickable wireframes to working code, used to test an idea before it is fully built. It answers whether a design works, not whether it is finished.
R
RAG (retrieval-augmented generation)
Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is a technique where an AI system first searches a set of documents, then writes its answer from what it found. It grounds responses in your own, current data and makes citations possible.
Rive
Rive is a tool for building interactive vector animations that run in websites, apps and games through Rive's own runtimes. State machines let the same file react to hover, clicks and live app data.
S
Schema markup
Schema markup is structured data, usually JSON-LD using the schema.org vocabulary, that tells search engines what a page describes, such as an organisation, article, product or FAQ, in a form machines can read.
SOC 2
SOC 2 is an independent CPA examination of how a service company protects customer data, reported against the AICPA's Trust Services Criteria. A Type 1 report covers control design at one date; a Type 2 covers how controls worked over a period.
Social proof
Social proof is evidence that other people use, trust and recommend a product, such as customer logos, testimonials, reviews, case studies and usage numbers. It works because people look to others when deciding what to do.
Static site generator (SSG)
A static site generator (SSG) builds every page of a site into finished HTML files at build time, so the server sends ready-made pages instead of assembling them on each request.
T
Technical debt
Technical debt is the future cost of shortcuts taken in a codebase or design. Like a loan, it buys speed now, and you pay interest later as every change takes longer until the shortcuts are cleaned up.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the work that lets search engines crawl, render and index a site correctly. It covers status codes, redirects, canonical tags, sitemaps, robots.txt, structured data, internal links and page speed.
Trust center
A trust center is a public page, or set of pages, where a company shows its security, privacy and compliance status. It collects reports, certificates, policies and subprocessors, with a way to request confidential documents.
U
User flow
A user flow is the sequence of screens, decisions and actions a person takes to complete one task in a product. Signing up, inviting a teammate and upgrading a plan are typical flows, usually drawn as a flowchart or wireflow.
User onboarding
User onboarding is the first-run experience that takes a new user from sign-up to their first real result in a product. It covers account setup, personalisation, guidance, empty states and prompts to come back.
UX audit
A UX audit is a structured review of a product or website that finds where users struggle and ranks what to fix first. It combines expert review against usability heuristics with evidence such as analytics, heatmaps, recordings and support feedback.
V
Vibe coding
Vibe coding is building software by describing what you want to an AI tool and accepting the code it writes, often without reading it closely. It is fast for prototypes and risky for products real users depend on.
Visual identity
Visual identity is the visible part of a brand identity: the logo, colour palette, typography, imagery, iconography and graphic elements. Together they make a company recognisable at a glance on its website, product and marketing.
W
Webflow
Webflow is a visual website builder and hosting platform. Teams design pages visually, manage structured content in its CMS, and publish without hand-writing code, with a CMS API for developers.
Website migration
A website migration is any move that changes a site's platform, URLs, domain or structure, such as WordPress to Webflow. Done well, it keeps search rankings by redirecting every changed URL and carrying over on-page SEO.
Wireframe
A wireframe is a simplified layout of a page or screen that shows structure, content hierarchy and key elements before visual design starts. It settles what goes where and why, without debating colour, imagery or polish.
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