A useful glossary of IT terms

Design

Figma is an interactive design and prototyping tool that enables designers, developers, and other team members to work together on projects. It offers an extensive set of features for creating graphical interfaces, including vector images, mockups, animations, prototypes, and real-time collaboration. One of the main features of Figma is the ability to work in the cloud, which allows you to work with your design from any device, wherever you are.

UX (User Experience) - the interaction and experience of users while using a product.

UI (User Interface) - the graphical interface through which users interact with a product.

Prototyping is the creation of prototypes or mockups to determine the structure and functionality of an interface.

CTA (Call-to-action) is an interface element, textual or graphical, that encourages the user to perform a targeted action: register for a seminar, make a purchase, order a service, sign up for a lesson, etc.

A hover is an effect that appears when you hover the mouse cursor over an interface element: a caption that appears, zooming in, shifting, and other changes.

Wireframe is the very first draft of the finished product, which schematically shows the location of the main elements and functions. This draft does not include interactivity. However, it includes the main elements, navigation, block structure, and basic visualisation of user interaction with the interface. Sometimes, a prototype is made with the wireframe in mind.

Target audience (TA) is a group of people that a product is aimed at in order to satisfy their needs and desires. The target audience can be defined by various criteria, depending on the requirements of the product being created.

A pixel (short for image element) is a single point in an image. These little guys are the smallest manageable units on our screens. On a computer monitor, a pixel is usually a square. Each pixel has a colour, and all the pixels make up an image. It's not a specific colour, but rather a variation that allows different images and graphics to be displayed.

Hierarchy - A visual arrangement of design elements that emphasises their importance, weight, and priority.

Font - in design, a font refers to a specific set of characters associated with a uniform design.

Grid System - a system for organising layout (layer, canvas, workspace, frame). Thus, we can call the grid the basic structure in the design of interfaces of any product. It helps not only to make elements more orderly but also to improve the interaction experience by increasing readability, clarifying information architecture, and creating a basis for an attractive design.

A Form is an element used to fill in information about yourself that will be used in your account, for example, in an online store. Forms can consist of input fields, radio buttons, checkboxes, drop-down lists, etc. Usually, a completed form is submitted with a confirmation button.

Frame - a rectangle that represents a window or area on the canvas in which you are working.

Landing page is a page that a user gets to after clicking an advertising banner or link. Landing pages are designed to increase conversions and attract new customers. It can contain information about the product or service, a form for filling in contact details, customer reviews, and other elements that help convince the user to perform the targeted action.

Input Field - elements that allow the user to enter text information in one or more lines.

Icon is a simplified image that intuitively demonstrates a particular symbol and helps users navigate a website. Icons are usually hyperlinked.

Developer

Web programming or web development is the creation of dynamic web applications and websites.

A browser is a program that allows you to display pages of the Internet on a computer screen, transfer and receive data from the World Wide Web.

VSCode is an environment for working with a project. Writing code, tests, and builds.

Hosting is a service for providing resources for placing information on a server that has constant access to the network. Netlify acts as a visual intermediary between the user and the server.

HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) is a special code used to mark up web pages.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) - code that describes style rules for displaying web pages.

Tag - a label that you use to tell a browser how to display your website.

JavaScript is a scripting language that is widely used to add functionality and interactivity to web pages.

Back-end (sometimes called server-side) - everything that happens behind the scenes of web applications. The back-end mainly uses a database to store information, which is then used to generate the front-end.

A server is a computer that serves all personal computers connected to it. At the same time, the server performs its functions and tasks without human intervention, i.e. independently.

Library is a set of auxiliary functions that solve one specific task. A library can add certain functionality to your application, but your code remains the same code.

A framework is a kind of framework for creating computer programs. The framework ‘imposes’ certain architectural restrictions on the developer when creating programs.

App - software (mobile or computer programme).

Update - an update of the application, progress in work, changes.

Feature - a feature, unique characteristic or functionality.

Data Analyst

Data analytics is the process of collecting, analysing and interpreting large amounts of data to derive valuable insights and conclusions that can be used for decision-making.

A dataset is a collection of data that consists of various observations, descriptions, or attributes that are linked together. It can be a table, matrix, or other data structure where each row represents a single observation and each column represents a specific attribute or feature.

Tableau is a powerful data visualisation and analysis tool that allows you to quickly turn complex data sets into understandable graphs, tables, and other interactive visualisations. It allows users to connect to different data sources, combine them, perform calculations, and create visualisations by dragging and dropping elements on the interface.

A worksheet is the main element of the Tableau interface on which you build your data visualisation. You can add fields from a data source to a worksheet and customise their placement, size, colour, and more.

A tooltip is a display of additional information about the data when the user hovers over a visualisation element. You can configure which data fields appear in the tooltip and their format.

An axis is a linear scale that displays data values in a graph. You can configure axes, including their minimum and maximum values, format, spacing, and more. You can also determine whether the axis is visible in the graph.

Filter is a tool that allows you to limit the visibility of data in your visualisation. You can configure filters to include or exclude specific values or ranges of values using different conditions.

Marks are visualisation elements that represent individual data records. Marks can be points, bars, dots, segments, and more, depending on the type of visualisation. You can customise the appearance of the markers, their size, colours, symbols, and more.

Show me is a toolbar that helps you choose the type of visualisation that best suits your data. Tableau offers different types of graphs, charts, maps, and other visualisations. You can choose a visualisation type from the Show me pane, and Tableau automatically builds the visualisation based on your data

Data Visualisation - presents data in the form of graphs, charts, maps, or other visuals to understand and identify patterns, trends, and insights.

Bar Chart - Displays categories on one axis and values on the other. It's used to compare categories or metrics.

Histogram - visualises the distribution of numerical data into specific intervals or bins.

Pie Chart - shows the proportionality of categories to the overall whole. It is used to show the proportions of a whole.

Line Chart - shows the change in values over time or other consecutive periods. It helps to show trends, dependencies, and changes in values.

Map Visualisations - Tableau lets you create map visualisations using geographic data, including world map, regional map, point map, and more.

Dashboards - Dashboards allow you to combine different types of visualisations on a single screen to create a comprehensive overview of data and key metrics.

Project Manager (PM)

Agile management is a project management method based on the agile philosophy.

Agile is a philosophy that promotes flexible, fast, and efficient development of new products that best meet the needs of the audience.

B2B (Business to Business) is a business line in which a company sells goods or services to other companies.

B2C (Business to Consumer) is a business area in which companies sell goods or services directly to customers.

Backlog - a complete list of tasks to be completed within a project in order of priority.

Brainstorming is the brainstorming of ideas by one or more people in an attempt to come up with or find a solution to a problem. This method of generating creative solutions is most often used in groups to freely exchange ideas and find new ideas based on them.

Canban is a tool for project management and visual display of ongoing and completed tasks, as well as those that are just waiting to be completed. The Canban board allows you to colour-code tasks, assign them to statuses and priorities, set deadlines, and more. This tool provides information that helps managers optimise their workflow, find problem areas, and eliminate them.

Case study - a detailed description of the customer's project and how, what tasks, and with what tools the contractor solved it.

Mindmap is a data visualisation method that helps to structure information and find relationships between its parts. Imagine a tree with several branches - this is what a mindmap looks like. This tool can be used to plan a project or visualise ideas, as well as to create relationships between tasks and subtasks.

Scrum is an agile project management method that divides projects into small segments - sprints. The main feature of Scrum is flexibility. You can always add new ideas to the project or make any necessary changes directly in the process. The method allows you to check the effectiveness and value of the work done along the way.

Sprint - a fixed period of one to four weeks for the development of a project or part of it. Sprints are used to break down complex projects into small tasks. Instead of working on all aspects of a project for a long time, the team breaks it down into small iterations.

Timeline is a chronological order of key events and tasks of a project that ensures their completion on schedule. Simply put, it's a project schedule.

Usability is an assessment of the ease of use of an application or website. The usability of functions, interface and navigation is assessed. For example, if a user gets confused in the website navigation, cannot register or make an online payment, the level of usability of a web resource can be considered low.

A user story is one or more sentences in the ordinary language of the subject area that describe what the user wants to achieve. User stories are used in agile methodologies to clarify the basic functions to be implemented.

The ICE (Impact+Confidence+Ease) evaluation method is an evaluation method for each feature or idea of a project according to 3 criteria:

I - Impact shows how your idea will positively affect the key indicator you are trying to improve.

C - Confidence indicates how confident you are in the estimates of impact and ease of implementation.

E - Ease of implementation is the simplicity of implementation. It is an assessment of how much effort and resources are required to implement the idea.

The ICE uses a scale from 1 to 10 to ensure that all factors contribute to the final score in a balanced way. What you can mean by 1-10 is that you need the values to be consistent with each other.

Quality Assurance engineer (QA)

Testing is the process of examining and verifying a product to ensure that it meets customer needs and meets the stated user expectations (expected results).

Testing is the lowest level, which involves running test cases and finding bugs.

Quality Control is a process whose main purpose is to analyse the results of tests and decide whether the product is ready for release into production. A QC engineer cannot give an approval on his or her own.

Quality Assurance is a process that includes a whole range of activities carried out throughout the entire development, release, and operation cycle.

A QA engineer is a specialist who tries to identify possible bugs when creating a project and looks for those that have ‘penetrated’ the finished project.

Specification - a document or set of documents that establishes the main purpose, quality indicators, technical, economic and special requirements for a software product, the scope, stage of development and composition of documentation.

Bug tracking system - software that allows you to register and track the process of resolving each defect (bug) identified by the tester until the problem is resolved. Examples of such systems: Jira, Trello, Redmine, and others.

Bug report is a technical document created by a tester in a bug tracking system during testing. It contains step-by-step instructions for reproducing a bug (defect).

Summary - a brief description of the problem that indicates the cause of the error (should be described in the form of WHAT? WHERE? WHEN?).

Preconditions - conditions that must be met for the error to occur.

Severity - an indicator that reflects the impact of the defect on the performance of the application. There are the following types of bug severity classification:

Blocker - blocks the execution of functions, it is impossible to work with the product until the bug is resolved;

Critical - a critical functionality bug that disrupts the operation of the product's main functionality;

Major - a significant bug that impedes the operation of the main functionality;

Minor - a minor defect that affects the functionality of the system to a relatively small extent or has obvious workarounds;

Trivial - does not affect the functionality, but worsens the overall impression of working with the product.

Priority - the priority of the defect in the bug tracking system, determines the order of fixing the defect. It can have three levels of priority:

low - low;

medium - medium;

high - high.

Steps to reproduce - a description of the steps to be taken to reproduce the error;

Actual result - what we get after completing the steps;

Expected result - what we should actually get after completing the steps;

Status - the current status of the bug;

Assignet to - indicates to whom the bug report is assigned for further correction;