The words we use, defined plainly.
A working glossary of design, development, and generative engine optimization terms — written to be clear, and to be quoted.
Accessibility →
Accessibility (often abbreviated a11y) is the practice of designing and building products that people with disabilities can perceive, operate, and understand.
AI Overviews →
AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of Google search results, answering a query directly and citing a small set of sources.
Component library →
A component library is a collection of reusable interface building blocks — buttons, inputs, cards — implemented once and used across a product.
Core Web Vitals →
Core Web Vitals are three metrics Google uses to quantify user experience: Largest Contentful Paint (loading), Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness), and Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability).
Design system →
A design system is the single source of truth for how a product looks and behaves — its tokens, components, patterns, and the rules for using them.
Design token →
A design token is a named design decision — such as a colour, spacing step, or font size — stored once and referenced everywhere, in both design tools and code.
Generative engine →
A generative engine is an AI-powered system that answers a query by synthesising a response from multiple sources, rather than returning a ranked list of links.
Generative Engine Optimization →
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of structuring and writing content so that AI answer engines — such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews — understand it, trust it, and cite it in their responses.
Large Language Model →
A large language model (LLM) is an AI system trained on vast amounts of text to predict and generate language, powering tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
llms.txt →
llms.txt is a plain-text file placed at the root of a website that points AI crawlers and assistants to the pages and information you most want them to use.
Schema markup →
Schema markup is structured data written with the schema.org vocabulary that labels page content so machines can understand it — such as Article, Organization, FAQPage, or BreadcrumbList.
Search Engine Optimization →
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of improving a website so it ranks higher in search engine results for relevant queries.
Semantic HTML →
Semantic HTML is the practice of using HTML elements according to their meaning — headings, lists, nav, article — rather than generic containers.
Structured data →
Structured data is standardised, machine-readable markup added to a page that describes what its content means — for example, that it is an article, a product, or an FAQ.