The other day I overheard a conversation in the kitchen that went, “What did the FRD say about their API? Any CMS preference?”
In the digital world, a lot of acronyms get thrown around. It’s easy to just nod and smile—nobody wants to raise their hand and say, “Hey, what is UX anyways?” or, "Hey, SEO isn’t the same as SEM.” (After all, I did let my mom get away with a month of signing her texts with “LOL” because she thought it stood for lots of love…)
If you don’t work with these terms everyday, it’s understandable you don’t know what they mean. In fact, I spent my first month working at iMarc thinking “JSON” was some guy everyone was friends with.
I’ll break (a few of) them down for you so at your next cocktail party or marketing meeting you can impress everyone and throw them around like a pro.
API
Application Program Interface. An API is a software-to-software interface that allows applications to "talk to each other." Amazon.com, for example, released its API so that developers could more easily access Amazon's product information.
CMS
Content Management System. A CMS is used to--you guessed it--manage content. It allows the user to publish, modify and maintain content from one system. An example of CMS is blog software (think Wordpress).
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets define the style of a particular webpage and can include colors, fonts, layout, etc. Basically these style sheets are instructions on how the webpage should look.
CRM
Customer Relationship Management. A CRM system is used to manage a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. Salesforce is one example of a popular CRM.
FRD
A Functional Requirement Document is a formal statement of an application's, well, functional requirements. It's essentially a contract regarding a product's intended capabilities, appearance and interactions with users.
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language is the markup language that every single web page template on the internet is written in.
JSON
JavaScript Object Notation. JSON (not to be confused with the ever-popular "Jason") is a way to store information in an organized, easy-to-access manner that is also valid Javascript code. In a nutshell, it provides a human-readable collection of data that can be accessed in a really logical manner.
UI
User Interface is creative look and feel applied to a website's content and function. UI's job is to bring together form and function into one effective communication with the user.
UX
User Experience is concerned with all aspects of how a user interacts with and uses a website or app. UX concerns itself with usability, ease of use and pleasure. UX incorporates multiple disciplines, including engineering, marketing, graphic design and interface design.
SEO
Search Engine Optimization. SEO is the practice of affecting the visibility of a website in a search engine's natural or organic search results.
SEM
Search Engine Marketing. SEM is similar to SEO but refers mainly to the text advertisements which appear at the top or on the right hand side of search engine results pages. SEM ads are Pay Per Click (PPC), meaning the advertiser pay for every time someone clicks the ad.
WYSIWYG
What You See Is What You Get. Pronounced "wizzy wig" (Yes, seriously.) WYSIWYG is a user interface that allows the user to view something very similar to the end result while the document is being created.
XML
EXtensible Markup Language. XML is a markup language designed to define data. HTML is actually XML with a less strict syntax. XML defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format which is both human-readable and machine-readable.
That's all folks! Stay tuned for my next post where I'll "decode" some common non-acronym web design terms, like sitemap and responsive design.
Good luck and remember: URL is not just a man’s name.
