As an award-winning web design company near Guildford, Thunderbolt Digital know all that pitfalls that can happens during the process of designing and building a website, including miscommunication! With this in mind, we’ve spoken before about the kind of jargon that designers can use when talking to clients, and how to decipher it. Unfortunately, there are an awful lot of technical terms out there, so we figured that a part two was needed! Here’s a few more terms you have heard but not understood – you’re welcome!
JPEG/PNG
Both of these are image file types that will be uploaded to your website, but JPEGs are more likely to be used in order to reduce load times; JPEGs are a “lossy” form of compression, which means they lose detail when shrunk down, whereas PNGs are lossless, meaning they don’t lose detail (but have much larger file sizes than JPEGs as a result)!
PNGs also have the extra property of supporting transparent backgrounds (which allows you to see the website behind blank areas of the picture) where JPEGs do not. Files and images such as logos are more likely to be sent as PNGs than JPEGs so they can be used by your web design company near Guildford on websites, emails, and other promotional materials.
Responsive Design
Given how essential responsive design is today’s world of device-dominated browsing, you’re likely to hear this term used now more than ever, but there’s no need to fear; “Responsive Design” is just a different way of saying “mobile friendly”, with the former generally being used by designers and developers. It should be a relatively easy term to remember as mobile friendly design is built around the idea that a page should respond to changes in devices and screen size.
Wireframe
A wireframe is like a blueprint for a website that allows designers to create a rough layout of a website before they actually start to design and built it. Wireframes allows designers to quickly place various elements so they can choose the best features, check functionality, and get your feedback before making a start on time-consuming design elements. There won’t be graphics, images, or colour – but don’t panic! Think of it as a rough draft of your website that can be tweaked much more easily than the actual build can.