Banner – a long, horizontal, online advert usually found running across the top of a page in a fixed placement.
Body Copy – refers to the main text on a website or web page.
Demographics - users are targeted using a range of complex criteria including age, attitude, lifestyle, gender, national identity, race and ethnicity, education, sexuality, income, employment, family status, geographical location, interests and hobbies, political affiliations and much more. Direct marketing is a phrase where the user is treated as an individual and this is often achieved through convergence and interactivity.
Flash Animation – a non fixed placement moving image that is not interactive but invasive, e.g. a car speeding across a screen. It is often created using Adobe Flash software. Film animators use this and other software to make cartoons.
Front Page / Homepage – simply refers to the main page of the website.
Genre and Web Pages - can be easily identified by genre including Sport, E-Commerce, Academic, Entertainment, Social Networking, Vanity Pages and Company Intranet Sites as not even close to an exhaustive list.
Grouping – convergence and follow on pages with similar content will be evidenced by links that the target audience will identify with. In depth qualitative and quantitative research is undertaken into users to determine what relevant grouping and nesting to use.
Navigation – key terminology that simply refers to the process of working through a web page or website, thus revealing its content. Primary navigation refers to user interaction with the main section of the site.
Nesting – connected areas will be nested together to allow the user to gain further clarification of news story or piece of information from another source on the front page. The British Medical Association for example claim that 40% of patients have researched any symptom and conditions they may have on-line before they present to their GP, the same news about a specific celebrity is often gained from clicking on several ‘sources’ and sports news again is obtained in much the same way again from a number of advertised links.
Overlayz – a quirky graphic design that takes over the whole page when clicked on.
Primary Target Audiences – are the main intended users that are measured using detailed demographic and psychographic profiling, just like traditional media. An example of Secondary users would be a Disney page intended for children with a parents’ link to prices of theme park holidays/breaks.
Prominence – the header will advise users on the content of that particular page whether it is the latest Harry Potter film, Disney website or BBC Sports Page. A newspaper’s masthead will play the same role.
Psychographic Research – treats the user as a personality type - Mainstreamers (follow the crowd), Succeeders (consider themselves as having ‘made it’ in life), Aspirers (constantly seek to better themselves and are influenced by others), Individualists (like to think of themselves as different and want something to specifically relate to them) and Reformers or Carers (people that work in caring professions – Social Work, Teaching, Youth Work and who seek to change or improve society).
Rich Media – where as many interactive and audio-visual elements are used to give richer content and a richer experience for the user e.g. watch a film, play a game, listen to audio. It is a form of convergence.
Skyscraper – a long, vertical online advert (resembling a Skyscraper) usually found running down the side of a page in a fixed placement.
Splash Pages – are a graphic introduction that directs you to the front page, often using Flash animation. Market research suggests some Splash Pages often alienate and frustrate the user in terms of time and the need for simplicity.
The Fold – is the point on a web page below which scrolling is required to view. Often large images are included in the fold to encourage users to see the whole page.
The Hero Shot – is an iconic, grounding image of the product, brand or item that is being marketed. Hero Shots can include books, people or random objects related directly to the website and are often clickable in a separate window leaving the existing window open.
Use of Colour – simple primary colours are often used, conventions include links to sections on a coloured background down the left hand side of a page. Amazon uses vivid, saturated colours.
White Space – web pages tend to be more cluttered with rich media rather than minimalist, white space is more of a convention associated with 2.0 and Social Networking sites.