Glossary

Making a website usable by people with a wide range of abilities, disabilities, devices, and ways of interacting. Accessibility includes readable content, keyboard-friendly controls, useful image descriptions, and forms people can complete. It needs attention throughout design, development, publishing, and ongoing maintenance.

A text alternative that communicates an image’s purpose to people who cannot see it. Good alt text explains what matters in the context of the page. A photo showing an accessible entrance needs a different description from the same photo used to introduce a building. Decorative images usually need an empty alternative.

Short for application programming interface: a defined way for software systems to exchange information or request actions. An API might let your website retrieve an event from a membership system or send an enquiry to your CRM. Access, permissions, and error handling still need to be planned.

Software or equipment that helps people with disabilities use information and services. Examples include screen readers, magnification software, and switch controls. A well-built website works with these tools so people can navigate and complete tasks using the setup that suits them.

WordPress’s visual editing system, also known as Gutenberg. Editors build pages from blocks such as paragraphs, images, and purpose-built components. With thoughtful defaults and editing controls, a team can publish useful content while keeping the organisation’s design consistent.

A reusable arrangement of WordPress blocks that gives editors a starting point for a page or section. A pattern might provide a campaign introduction, a resource listing, or a call to action. Synced patterns can share changes across multiple locations; ordinary patterns become independent content when inserted.

Keeping a reusable copy of information so a website can respond without repeating the same work for every request. Caching can make public pages faster and reduce server load. It needs to account for updates, signed-in users, and private information so people receive the right content.

Short for continuous integration and continuous delivery or deployment. These practices use repeatable checks and release steps to help teams prepare and deliver code changes. Automation can check the work, while people review and approve releases where needed. Publishing website content remains a separate activity.

The difference between a foreground colour and the background behind it. Sufficient contrast helps people read text and identify controls. A brand colour can work well in one combination and poorly in another, so accessibility depends on how colours are used together.

An approach that brings together separate services to provide a digital experience. Content, search, commerce, and member accounts might each use a different system. This can offer useful flexibility, but the connections between services also need to be built, monitored, and maintained.

A network of servers that can deliver website files and eligible cached pages from locations closer to visitors. A CDN can improve speed and reduce work for the hosting platform. What it stores and serves needs to suit the website, especially where content is private or personalised.

The responsibilities and working practices that keep website information accurate, useful, and current. Governance covers who owns content, who can publish it, how it is reviewed, and when it should be updated or removed. It helps a growing website remain dependable for its readers.

Software that helps a team create, organise, edit, and publish content. WordPress is a CMS. The right setup gives staff suitable tools and permissions for their daily work, whether they are updating a service page, publishing a resource, or managing a larger library.

Google’s measures of three parts of the website experience: loading, responsiveness, and visual stability. They help teams understand whether pages load promptly, respond to input, and avoid unexpected layout shifts. They are useful evidence alongside checks of navigation, accessibility, forms, and other real tasks.

A distinct kind of content in WordPress, with its own editing and display needs. Events, staff profiles, and resources are common examples. A custom post type helps editors manage that information consistently, instead of fitting every item into an ordinary page or blog post.

A shared set of design decisions, reusable components, and guidance for building consistent experiences. It can cover typography, colour combinations, buttons, forms, and page layouts. A useful design system helps teams create new content and features without making the same design decisions each time.

A content management system used separately from the website or application that presents its content. Information usually travels between them through APIs. This can suit organisations serving several independent digital products, while adding responsibilities for previews, page layouts, releases, and the publishing experience.

How information is organised, named, and connected so people can find what they need. On a website, this includes navigation, content groupings, labels, and relationships between pages. Good information architecture reflects the audience’s tasks and language, alongside the organisation’s needs.

A connection that lets systems work together, such as a website sharing information with a membership platform or CRM. A useful integration reduces repeated work and supports a smoother experience. Its design should account for data ownership, permissions, failures, and ongoing changes to each system.

Using a website’s links, menus, forms, and other controls through a keyboard. People need a sensible order, a visible focus indicator showing where they are, and a way to move into and out of interactive elements. Completing a real task without a mouse is a useful accessibility check.

Hosting where a provider takes responsibility for defined parts of running the website’s infrastructure. Depending on the service, this may include backups, monitoring, security measures, and performance tools. The scope matters: hosting support does not automatically include maintaining every plugin, integration, or piece of website content.

Software provided under a licence that allows people to inspect, use, modify, and redistribute its source code under stated conditions. WordPress is open source. This creates opportunities for customisation and provider choice, while professional implementation, hosting, and maintenance still require investment.

Writing that helps the intended reader find, understand, and use information. It uses familiar words, explains necessary specialist terms, and presents the next step directly. Plain language respects the reader’s time and makes complex subjects easier to act on.

Design that adapts to different screen sizes and viewing conditions. Text, navigation, images, and controls should remain useful on a phone, a large monitor, or an enlarged page. A responsive website needs to support the task as the layout changes.

Assistive software that presents on-screen information through speech or a braille display. People can use it to move between headings, review links, and interact with forms. Useful headings, meaningful labels, and properly built controls help a screen reader communicate how the website works.

Website markup that identifies the purpose of content and controls, such as headings, navigation, links, and buttons. These meanings help browsers and assistive technology interpret a page. Making text look like a heading or a control look like a button does not provide the same information.

A separate version of a website used to review and test changes before releasing them to the live site. It gives teams a place to check layouts, features, and integrations. Staging content and data need care so testing does not expose private information or trigger real transactions.

A way to group and connect content using shared terms. WordPress categories and tags are taxonomies. A resource library might use topics or audience types to help people browse. This glossary uses tags, with each tag’s description providing the definition you see here.

The future effort created by technical shortcuts, outdated dependencies, or decisions that become difficult to maintain. Some compromises are reasonable when their consequences are understood. Unmanaged technical debt can make routine improvements slower, more costly, and harder to deliver reliably.

The full investment required to build, operate, improve, and eventually replace a website. It includes hosting, licences, maintenance, staff time, integrations, and future changes alongside the initial build. Looking at the whole cost helps organisations compare options over the years they expect to use them.

How well people can use a website to achieve what they came to do. Usability considers whether information is easy to find, instructions make sense, and tasks can be completed with reasonable effort. Testing realistic tasks with representative users helps reveal problems a visual review can miss.

Dependence on a particular supplier or product that makes changing providers difficult or expensive. It can come from proprietary software, restrictive contracts, hard-to-export data, or undocumented custom work. Portable content, documented integrations, and a realistic handover plan help preserve future choices.

A system that records changes to files so a team can review the history, collaborate, and recover earlier versions. Git is a common example used for website code. Version control supports safer development, but it does not replace backups of the website’s database and uploaded files.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, a shared technical standard for evaluating digital accessibility. A project should specify the version and conformance level it targets, such as WCAG 2.2 Level AA. Testing against that target supports improvement; applicable legal and contractual requirements also need their own review.

The people, tools, and working practices that help a website keep improving. WebOps brings publishing, design, development, and operations together so useful changes can move from an idea to a reliable release. Hosting, testing environments, automation, and monitoring support that ongoing work.

An open-source content management system used to publish and manage websites. Its block editor, themes, plugins, and APIs can support a wide range of content and services. The quality of the finished website depends on its design, implementation, infrastructure, and ongoing care.