Miquido’s IT Glossary

(AKA split testing or bucket testing) is the process of comparing two different web-page or app elements of the same category to determine which one is performing better. The trick is to never test more than two elements at the same time.

Web accessibility means that a website and all its elements including the technologies used during the development stage are easy to understand and to use by an average user. It can include ways to make the software accessible to people with disabilities. Some good examples of accessibility include: increasing the size of icons on your smartphone, text-to-speech, VoiceOver, etc.

Thanks to this developer platform you can create software that extends Google Assistant’s functionalities.

Adaptive design is a part of a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows page elements to display as designed, on devices with different screen resolutions. Adaptive design is similar to responsive web design, yet adaptive keeps fixed layout sizes, while responsive content can change dynamically.

See also: GUI (Graphic User Interface), Mobile-first, Responsive web design (RWD),

The key purpose of AI is for the machine (technology) to simulate human behavior (e.g. learning, reasoning, perception) as closely as possible in order to tackle problems that would be difficult to address with traditional algorithms. Its core tasks include, yet are not limited to: learning, reasoning, and perception

See also: ML (Machine Learning), Deep Learning, Big data,

In programming and web development, algorithms are essential for problem solving. They basically encompass a set of steps needed for completing a specific task in a finite amount of time.

(AKA nickname) is a short and easy-to-remember name usually used in e-mail applications or user names on specific sites.

Is a continuous signal that carries either sound or images (ie. information). An example of analog signal would be FM radio broadcasting. The term analog is also frequently used to describe non-digital devices, e.g analog cameras.

Angular is a powerful JavaScript framework for frontend development maintained by Google. Some of the key features of Angular include UI-centered templates, TypeScript, and open-source libraries.

See also: Framework, Frontend, JavaScript, Library, Open-source, TypeScript, UI (User Interface),

A popular subgroup of Machine Learning, ANN simulates the way the human brain processes information with a goal of solving problems that have proven to be too difficult for humans or too tedious to deal with on an everyday basis.

See also: ML (Machine Learning), NLP (Natural language processing), NLU (Natural Language Understanding),

API facilitates communication between programs by providing a common interface. 

A well-known example is Facebook API – you might have noticed some apps or websites allow you to register with Facebook. Doing so creates a new profile that’s automatically populated with your Facebook account data. In such cases, most often, “their ” system communicates with Facebook via API (if you allow it), and retrieves all that information.

An app is a type of software, designed to perform specific functions. There are different types of apps: desktop, mobile, web.

See also: SPA (Single Page Application), PWA (Progressive Web Application), Web app,

A process of creating software for either web, desktop or mobile. Application development encompasess design, prototyping, programming, Q&A and ongoing improvements to the app.

See also: Mobile app, Web app, Web development,

As the name suggests, an application owner is a person or a group of people, responsible for ensuring that the app and its every element works according to its specified functions, meets set requirements, and follows security guidelines.

See also: Product Owner,

In web development, architecture defines how apps interact with each other, middleware systems, and databases. It is responsible for ensuring that several applications can work together.

See also: Middleware, Database,

ASO refers to the process of improving an app’s visibility across dedicated mobile stores (App Store of Apple and Play Store of Android).

A complete overview, inspection, and analysis of the specific assets (e.g. content, design, code).

It is an interactive experience where reality is modified and enhanced with the use of technology.

The process of verifying and confirming user identity to see whether they are who they claim to be; e.g. when you login to a page or are asked to follow a link sent to your email before accessing free content.

See also: Authorisation,

Not to be confused with authentication. Authorisation refers to granting official permission to access system resources. It’s essential for providing quality user experience and increasing security.

Amazon Web Services is one of the most popular cloud computing platforms, subsidized by Amazon.

(AKA Microsoft Azure) is a cloud computing service supported by Microsoft, providing SaaS, PaaS, IaaS among other features.

See also: IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-service), Cloud computing, PaaS (Platform-as-a-service), SaaS (Software-as-a-service),

It’s a part of the system the user is not interacting with directly. Commonly, it’s the backend that provides actual content for apps and web pages. It’s responsible for what’s running on the server, handling all data, processing incoming requests, running scripts, storing records, etc. 

The most popular programming languages for backend are: Java, Node.js, Golang, Kotlin. 

See also: Server, End-user, Frontend,

In Scrum Project Management, backlog is a list of all tasks that need to be done within one project. Tasks are stored in the backlog before being assigned to a sprint.

In general, the term means compatibility between the new and the old. Running incompatible applications on newer systems can result in apps crashing or showing error messages, and so in that sense, backward compatibility is a newer software that’s still working on old devices.

On the other hand, it can indicate older programs still being supported on the new hardware – ie. console games. Or, in the world of programming, it can mean compatibility between newer libraries or plugins with the current version of the application.

With bandwidth, we measure how much data a network is able to transmit over a given time frame. Higher bandwidth means larger amounts of data.

In FinTech, bank-in-a-box is a term used to describe integrated solutions supporting core banking operations. Typically, the core platform is hosted and provided by the application service provider on a model similar to SaaS.

Business intelligence is a broad term that covers technologies, applications, and even practices dedicated to collecting, analysing, and presenting business information in order to improve the decision making process.

Big data encompasses large sets of diverse information with scalability in mind. Normally such amounts of data are too much for regular machines to process. It requires more robust, distributed ways of storing and querying. These things are provided by market ready solutions – like GCP BigQuery, Hadoop or Cassandra.

Machine Learning can be used together with Big data to accelerate the process of analyzing and uncovering trends.

See also: AI (Artificial Intelligence), Data mining, ML (Machine Learning),

This serverless data warehouse provided by Google is designed specifically to help analyse and process Big Data. Despite operating on GCP, it offers the ability for multi-cloud analytics.

Biometrics are physical characteristics, such as fingerprints, facial recognition, voice recognition, etc., that can be used for identification purposes. 

Black box testing is the method of software testing, when the tester doesn’t possess the knowledge about the internal code structure.

See also: White box testing,

Bootstrap is one of the most popular frontend libraries, dedicated to HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It provides ready-made code samples for developers to build responsive mobile-first pages faster and easier.

Breadcrumb trails help users locate themselves on a given website thanks to an organised content structure. They operate similarly to a progress bar, arranging  the complete path from the main page to the current landing.

A browser is a program through which you access the internet. Some of the most popular web browsers these days are Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple Safari. Make sure you understand the difference between a web browser and a search engine.

The verb “buffer” refers to the process when a computer stores information temporarily in its memory. You might be familiar with the term “buffering”, which occurs when data is downloaded at a slow speed, causing it to take longer to load.

In IT, bugs are errors and mistakes inside the code that need to be fixed.

A detailed fictional profile of a company’s target audience. Buyer personas are based on research and describe the potential customers behavior, attitudes, pain points etc.

A workplace policy, under which employees are allowed to bring in personal mobile devices and use them to access company data, such as Wi-Fi, email, personal account, etc.

A high-level programming language commonly used for writing the majority of available platforms.

Special storage, usually very fast and cheap to access. It is used to store any kind of data that might be a result of more complex and heavy operations (calculations; calls to external services etc.). 

For example, your browser tries to store as many assets as possible in cache – ie. images, scripts and so on. As a result when you visit the same page again, it usually loads faster compared to the first visit. This is because the browser is using files that are already saved, instead of loading them again from the internet.

A series of puzzles simple for humans but quite hard to solve for computers. Used to confirm that we’re actual people trying to access a page rather than an automated bot.

Not many people know that, but CAPTCHA is actually an acronym, which stands for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”.

(AKA e-Learning) is a form of education, when a computer is replacing a human instructor during the entirety or some parts of the education process. There are many forms of CBT, including online, mobile, web-based, or even distance learning. 

It is particularly useful for helping learners master a specific computer-based tool or platform, but lately it is more and more often used to deliver general knowledge and skills as well.

Continuous delivery is a software engineering approach that encourages teams to produce software in short cycles. As a result, it can be reliably released automatically at any time. Thanks to CD, we are able to build, test, and release software products faster and with higher efficiency.

See also: CI (Continuous Integration),

Chatbot is a program used for the purpose of communicating with humans through either text or voice messages. Chatbots are most often based on natural language processing systems.

Used in Big Data, churn prediction is the process of detecting customers who are likely to unsubscribe from a certain service.

A primary DevOps practice, Continuous integration is focused on automating the integration of code changes from multiple contributors into a single project.

See also: CD (Continuous Delivery), Git,

In Artificial Intelligence, classification systems serve for creating predetermined categories that help algorithms to study the provided data points and create appropriate models.

Cloud deployment enables end-users to access third-party SaaS, PaaS and IaaS solutions on demand. The four cloud deployment models are private, public, community, and hybrid.

There is a subtle yet significant difference between cloud-native and cloud-based applications. Simply put, cloud-native apps are faster and easier to deploy because they depend on neither hardware nor software. In turn, while cloud-based technology is closely integrated with all the benefits of cloud-native solutions, it still may require additional stack updates.

See also: Cloud computing, Hardware, Software,

Content Management Systems are used to facilitate the creation and modification of websites and other forms of digital content. The best-known example of a CMS today is WordPress. Without a proper CMS, developers would have to create a code from scratch for every client. Instead3, they rely on the same software to take care of the code, data, and core infrastructure.

See also: Headless CMS,

A thorough competitive analysis will help business stakeholders identify main competitors, evaluate their strategies, and determine their strengths and weaknesses in order to improve your own approach. 

In tech, this term refers to the simultaneous processes and/or programs that can run at the same time.

Containers gather the application code and all its dependencies in a single package, which in turn can be run on virtually any computing environment without compatibility issues.

Containers are available for Windows, Linux, Cloud services and so on. This approach ensures that the application will function in the same way, regardless of the infrastructure.

See also: Containerisation,

Thanks to containerisation, apps are run in secure and isolated user spaces that provide clean separation of concerns. As a result, developers can focus on the application’s logic and dependencies while IT operations teams work on deployment and management.

See also: Virtualisation,

Any desired action you want your target audience to complete. The most common examples of conversions include form submission, online purchase, or simply a video stream.

Cookie is a small piece of information used by computers to identify you and your online activity. It is server-specific, meaning that the website will only record information about your activity on itself, without following your entire search history.

(AKA web crawler, spiderbot, spider) is a type of bot used by search engines like Google to index website content across the Internet in order to determine the position of a given website on SERPs.

See also: Index, Search engine, SERP (Search Engine Result Page),

CRM or Customer Relationship Management systems create centralised approach to storing customer and/or prospect data, tracking their interactions, and sharing this information internally. Having a proper CRM is crucial for any business that aims to grow fast and effectively. Some of the popular CRM systems are Pipedrive, Nutshell, or Zoho.

See also: Customer Analytics,

As a form of outsourcing, crowdsourcing is a process of tasking a loosely defined external group with a project that you couldn’t complete in-house. Usually, in IT crowdsourcing involves the general public.

Is a (cascading) style sheet language mainly used for describing how websites should look and display.

CTA is a button that appears across landing pages and leads users to the most desired conversions.

During customer analytics, businesses can use customer-behaviour data to help them make informed decisions dealing with direct marketing, site selection, and CRM.

Daemon is a computer program that runs in the background instead of requiring direct control that aims to facilitate computerised multitasking.

Dart is a general-purpose programming language used for mobile and web development. It combines many features of Java, Python, and JavaScript.

Data analytics helps drawing conclusions about certain processes based on raw data. It is used by many industries for various purposes, such as understanding customers, evaluating their own business performance, developing personalised products, etc.

Developing a thorough data collection plan is crucial for any AI or ML based project, as it is the process that ensures you will be able to gather, analyse, and interpret high-quality data from your project documentation.

Data labelling is the term used mainly in Machine Learning. It is the process of identifying raw data and enhancing it with informative labels to provide the necessary context for a model to learn from.

Data mining is a process of turning raw data into useful information. Software can be used to identify patterns in the bulks of data to develop more effective business strategies. Data mining is particularly important in machine learning and AI model training.

See also: Big data, ML (Machine Learning),

Google Data Studio is a free solution for carrying out advanced data analysis and visualisations.

A collection of information organised and arranged in such a way that allows computer applications to quickly access and manipulate it.

(AKA denial-of-service) DDoS is a form of a cyber attack. It’s a malicious attempt to disrupt normal web traffic. The goal of a DDoS attack is to make resources unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or permanently disrupting services of the appropriate Internet host.

Debugging is the process of identifying and fixing errors (bugs) in the code.

(AKA Deep neural learning) is a subset of AI and ML, which networks are capable of learning from unstructured or unlabeled data unsupervised.

See also: ML (Machine Learning), AI (Artificial Intelligence),

Often used in Agile project management, “definition of done” is a previously agreed list of actions or items that need to be accomplished before a project can be considered completed.

See also: Definition of Ready,

Definition of ready defines specific criteria for a specific user story that have to be met before it can even be considered to be included into a Scrum sprint.

See also: Definition of Done,

In Scrum and Agile, a demo is kind of a grand presentation of the “done” functionality to all the business stakeholders. It is an opportunity for the development team, the project manager, and the product owner to discuss the current stage of the project, ask all the important questions, and forecast the release date.

See also: Definition of Done, Scrum,

Design Sprint is a popular problem solving framework, which accelerates the decision making process. In this approach, a project is split into a 5-day sprint, where each day has a specific purpose: 

• Setting the goals
• Brainstorming and sketching
• Roadmapping the prototype
• Turning storyboard into the prototype
• Testing, gathering feedback, and getting ready for improvements

It is an application meant to work on a desktop or laptop computer. 

See also: Web app, Mobile app,

A part of increasingly growing digital fraud, device farms are actual locations where fraudsters repeat actions (e.g. engagement) to mimic legitimate activity with a goal of draining advertising budgets.

DevOps is a popular technical term referring to a set of practices that combines software development and IT operations. Its ultimate goal is to shorten the development life cycle and provide continuous high-quality software delivery. It is connected to Agile methodology.

Digital transformation is the process of relying on digital technologies to optimise existing business processes, customer experience, and IT solutions, or to build brand new ones. Digital transformation may cover services like legacy software modernisation or product redesign

Digitalisation is the modernisation of business operations, processes, and models that uses digital technologies to provide higher ROIs and easier scalability.

Digitisation is the process of converting analogue information into digital (e.g. turning a hand-written document into a .docx format).

Disruptive technology is an innovation that causes dramatic changes in business operations and customer experiences. It is visibly superior to the technology it replaces, so it is easily adopted. Some of the examples of disruptive technologies popular today are e-Commerce or ride-sharing.

Data Loss Prevention is a set of tools, practices, and processes dedicated to ensuring that sensitive data is not lost or accessed/abused by unauthorized parties. DLP software is used to detect potential data breaches and prevent them.

In IT, the term “documentation” is used to describe the complete functionality, use, and/or architecture of a product or a service delivered.

Domain is the most important part of an Internet address. For example, our domain name is miquido.com – notice how it doesn’t include “https”, “www”, or other elements that usually come after “/”.

Drag and drop is the most popular type of general public editors & CMSs that allow users to create, arrange, and manage content by interacting with ready-made templates they can freely rearrange on a page.

As the name suggests, disaster recovery is the process and related policies that prepare you for recovery or continuation of organisational technology infrastructure after a natural or manmade disaster.

e-Commerce is a common way of referring to online stores.

People who view and provide feedback of a service or a product before it goes to the general public. Early adopters allow companies to gain valuable information about their offer and how it should be improved.

Edge computing brings computation and data storage closer to the location where it is needed, improving response time.

(AKA educational technology or EduTech) means new technological solutions for classrooms such as interactive screens and whiteboards, specific hardware and/or meant to facilitate the educational process.

Encrypting is converting information into a secret code used to hide the information’s original meaning. It is widely used for digital data security, password setting, or working with sensitive data.

In product development, an end-user is a person who is ultimately expected to use a product. They are not usually software houses’ clients. Instead, they are the clients’ customers. 

Refers to the way in which an enterprise is structured and how its processes are organised in order to best fit its business goals.

Happens when a provider of a service or product stops supporting and/or selling it in favor of a newer version.

A status code which informs the user that a resource they’re trying to access could not be found. Error 404 most often happens when a web page has been deleted or moved to a different URL.

A type of data integration, ETL describes three crucial steps (extract, transform, load) used to blend data from multiple sources into one warehouse

See also: Data Collection Plan,

See: XP

Favicon is the icon that appears before the address and page title of a web browser. You can see them in browser tabs, history, toolbars, bookmarks, search bars, and more. Favicons make it easier to find and differentiate the website you are looking for. 

Feasibility study is a process of careful and thorough analysis of all the relevant factors for a given project (e.g. economic, technical or legal implications) in order to assess the likelihood of the project succeeding.

Fintech firms are at the intersection of financial services and technology. As a rule, it is used to describe companies, services, or specific tools that rely on tech to deliver financial services.

Firewall uses specific software or hardware to block certain types of traffic. For example, it could be used to block all the traffic coming from a given IP address.

Flutter is a free open-source mobile framework for User Interface supported by Google. It gives cross-platform applications functionality as close to native apps as possible.

See also: Cross-platform, Native application,

To build websites and applications faster, developers use frameworks that have some components pre-designed. Common frontend frameworks are React JS, Angular, Vue.js or Flutter (purely mobile).

Frontend is the user-facing part of the application; most commonly it means the user interface of an app or a website. The term encompasses the look and experience of the application: all the buttons, notifications, as well as the overall design.

Learn more about frontend development

Full-stack web developers can work on both client and server-side software. They need to understand more languages, as in addition to the standard HTML and CSS they also need to be familiar with JavaScript, Python, Node.js, or other server and browser programming languages.

Functional requirements list and describe specific services a given software must offer in order for it to function properly.

Gantt charts are commonly used in project management to develop projects schedules and monitor the progress. This system is particularly useful for simplifying complex multi-layered projects.

Different programming languages (such as Java) use garbage collectors (GC) to automatically determine which memory is no longer used and free it. Without this process, applications would continue to use up all of computer memory and crash as a result.

Thanks to cloud platforms like GCP users can create apps that benefit from hyperscale data centers to maximise their reach, borrow sophisticated AI functions, use massive data storages, etc.

See also: Azure, AWS (Amazon Web Services),

Git is an open-source version control software that allows coders to track changes in any set of files, safely revert back to their previous versions, collaborate across projects, and facilitate software development.

See also: GitHub, Version control system,

GitHub is the most popular code hosting platform where developers can host, share, and test their codes and projects.

See also: Git,

Also known as Go, Golang is an open-source, modern programming language used for web and mobile app development. Released in 2009 by Google, Go is currently used in many popular apps such as Uber, Dropbox, or YouTube.

GraphQL is a query language that provides a complete description of data in a given API. Compared to other common solutions used to structure APIs, GraphQL allows developers and systems to request the exact data sets they need.

“Green” describes technologies used  with the aim to create products that are environmentally friendly and sustainable. 

(AKA grayware) Greyware describes unwanted programs of different sizes that damage computer systems. As a rule, adware, malware, and spyware are classified as greyware.

Growth hacking is a popular practice in modern companies fully dedicated to growth. The ultimate goal of GH is to acquire as many customers as possible while spending as little as possible.

Interface that gives the user an ability to interact with a mobile or desktop device by the  use of visual components such as graphical icons.

See also: UI (User Interface),

Simply put, hardware is any physical element of a computer or equipment. For example, CPU, monitor, mouse.

More advanced Content Management Systems often choose to go “Headless”, meaning not providing a presentation layer. It gives more freedom for frontend development and makes your content management strategy much more flexible. You can read more about it on our blog.

High-level programming languages are easier to understand because they may use native language elements, unlike low-level languages. 

Some of the high-level languages are: Java, Python, JavaScript, C++

In order to fix software bugs as quickly as possible, developers release small sets of changes in code also known as hotfix.

See also: Patch,

HyperText Markup Language is a code used to structure the elements on a webpage. 

HTML5 is the current version of the language standard.

HTTP protocols are used to transfer webpage data. In order to ensure higher security and to encrypt both requests and responses, most of the providers require the use of HTTPS instead of a regular HTTP. HTTPS uses SSL for a deeper encryption.

Hybrid applications combine the elements of both native mobile and web apps. Hybrid mobile apps are written in web development languages (HTML, CSS, JS) with the help of Cordova or Ionic frameworks. Their performance is much lower than that of cross-platform or pure native applications.

Hyperlinks are the pieces of text or media on a web page that redirects you to another webpage.

A form of cloud computing that allows you to use essential resources for computing, networking, or storing data on a pay-as-you-go basis.

See also: PaaS (Platform-as-a-service), SaaS (Software-as-a-service), Serverless,

Image classification is used in Machine Learning and describes the process of categorising and labeling groups of pixels or vectors inside a given image according to specific rules. It is a crucial part of digital image analysis.

See also: Image recognition,

Image recognition is the ability of software to identify specific objects or shapes inside a given image with the help of machine vision

In-app purchase allows buying additional content or services within a given application thanks to the properly set up payments API.

In the IT industry, in-house projects are those completed within the same organisation or company, without outsourcing any part of a project to external vendors.

Web indexing is the process of search engines discovering, crawling, and remembering websites in order for them to later appear on SERPs.

See also: Search engine, SERP (Search Engine Result Page),

In software computing, an interface is a surface where languages, codes, and messages are used by different program elements to communicate with each other and with the hardware.

See also: UI (User Interface), GUI (Graphic User Interface),

IoE is the connection between people, processes, data, things, and the value these ties bring to online experiences.

See also: IoT (Internet of Things),

Unlike IoE, the Internet of Things is the network of physical devices. The communication among the devices here is fully automated.

IP stands for Internet Protocol. An IP Address is a unique string of characters that identifies a device on the internet or a local network to facilitate communication.

During an IT assessment, tech experts carry out a comprehensive review of a company’s technology in order to ensure that it meets specific business goals

Java is a high-level programming language used for backend development. Java programs are multiplatform, which allows them to run on different platforms, such as Windows, Mac, or Unix.

See also: JVM (Java Virtual Machine), Kotlin/Native,

JavaScript is a programming language used both for frontend and backend development that adds interactivity to web pages.

jQuery is an open-source JavaScript library that helps developers add extra functionality to their projects with less effort.

JVM allows computers to run Java and Java-compiled programs.

In terms of SEO, a keyword is a word or phrase typed into a search engine by a user in order to find specific information.

KISS is the design principle that encourages to keep solutions as simple as possible, as simplicity guarantees better user experience.

Kotlin is a general purpose open-source programming language that combines object-oriented and functional programming features. It has been originally developed for JVM and Android, but nowadays it’s a powerful cross-platform solution. Learn more about Kotlin Multiplatform on our blog.

Kotlin/Native allows compiling Kotlin code to native binaries. It can run without a virtual machine.

Kubernetes is an open-source system that allows automation of deployment, scaling, management of container apps, and can be used for web hosting.

(AKA Know your Client), KYC describes a specific set of guidelines in financial services that encourage professionals to verify the identity of their clients either before or during working with them

LAN basically refers to all of the devices connected together in one physical location, such as an office.

Any page on the website that users “land on”. Users can be redirected to a landing page by, for example, a PPC campaign.

Refers to a solution that is most advanced in a given field. It’s most often used when describing technology.

The term “legacy software” refers to technology that’s been around for a long time and has become obsolete. It still fulfills a certain business need, yet it is tied to a specific operating system or hardware that is no longer supported or hard to maintain. Basically, it’s an application your business depends on, yet it is no longer nearly as effective as it used to be.

A collection of resources that typically consists of prewritten code, battle-tested by many different developers and on various projects.

See also: Plugin,

In edtech, LMS is a software designed for administration, documentation, management, tracking, automation, etc. of educational content. Learning management systems make learning faster, more cost-effective, and trackable.

Low-level programming languages provide next to no programming concepts and closely resemble writing actual machine instructions. Two main examples of low-level languages are assembly and machine code.

See also: High-level language,

Mainframe is a powerful high-speed computer that is capable of handling numerous tasks concurrently.

Software designed with an ill-intended purpose in mind, such as disruption, damage, or unauthorized access to the system.

See also: DDoS Attacks,

Meta texts (including meta titles, descriptions, tags) are added to the html versions of the pages to improve their SEO rankings. 

See also: Azure,

See Azure.

Thanks to microtransactions users can purchase virtual items for real-life currencies. They are often used in the gaming industry, and while the concept itself has been considered quite controversial, it is not actually illegal.

A piece of software that operates between two different components. It can do whatever a developer needs from it, depending on the system and implementation. Commonly, it might mediate between modules not originally designed to communicate with each other.

Machine Learning is a type of Artificial Intelligence which relies on data and algorithms with a goal of imitating the human learning process. Thanks to advanced learning patterns ML is able to gradually improve its accuracy over time. Classification, prediction, anomaly detection, recommendation etc. are all examples of ML tasks.

A software application meant to run on mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets.

See also: Web app, Application development,

Mobile wallets are apps that allow users to store virtual credit, debit, or loyalty card numbers, airplane or events tickets, etc. 

With the mobile-first approach, your team designs a desktop site starting with the mobile version which is later adapted to larger screens. As a business model, mobile-first strategies target mobile users above all others.

In ML, models are files specifically trained to recognise certain patterns via sets of data and algorithms.

A graphical representation of ideas that can contain images, text, colours, patterns etc. In business, a mood board serves as a tool for defining brand image and getting the creative process started.

Motion designs are mainly associated with animation and visual effects. It is based on core graphic design principles.

In computing, multithreading refers to a technique that allows several processors to use the same single set of code.

Native mobile apps are built for a certain platform using specific programming languages (Swift/ObjC for iOS or Java/Kotlin for Android). They often offer high optimization and can fully utilize the functionality of a given mobile hardware.

See also: Cross-platform,

NFC stands for “Near Field Communication” and refers to the short-range wireless connectivity tech that allows devices to communicate with each other. The most known example of NFC is using proximity payments with your phone.

NFC stands for “Near Field Communication” and refers to the short-range wireless connectivity tech that allows devices to communicate with each other. The most known example of NFC is using proximity payments with your phone.

NLP is the automatic manipulation and understanding of written or spoken text. It is where linguistics intersects with Artificial Intelligence. NLP methods are used to monitor customers and analyse user behavior, gather feedback, and keep track of social media, chatbot, and/or email conversations.

NLU is a subset of Natural Language Processing, defined as the process of transforming text into a format that a machine can understand.

Node.js is an open-source cross-platform JavaScript platform used for backend development and serverless cloud applications. It has become one of the most popular environments and gathered a large community of engaged developers.

As it’s using JavaScript – same as many frontend frameworks – it is a very popular choice among full stack developers.

See also: Cross-platform, JavaScript,

These are requirements that specify the way in which a system should function and its constraints. Examples of such attributes include performance, scalability or security.

It’s an example of a computer vision technology that allows for identifying objects in visuals such as images or videos.

See also: Image classification, Image recognition,

OCR is a technology that’s able to convert documents (printed text, pdf files, images etc.) into machine interpretable data.

On-site simply refers to completing the project at your office. Unlike in-house projects it doesn’t force you to work with your own team of developers, it is simply the physical location that matters.

See also: Outsource, Workshops,

Ready-made software solutions widely available for companies to purchase. Unlike custom software, OOTB most often doesn’t come with much space for modifications or improvements other than what its provider intended.

Open-source software are projects whose codebase is open to the public. Anyone is free to modify, update, distribute, or use the code however they want.

This often gathers a large community of driven individuals focused on improving  open software. Thanks to them, many of the open source software offer advanced and robust solutions, which are widely used in commercial spaces.

Operating Systems manage hardware, software, resources, and all the needed services for computers and their programs. The most popular OSs today are Microsoft Windows and Apple’s MacOS.

A password that’s only valid one time and is no longer valid after that single use.

Outsourcing is a business practice when a company decides to hire a third party to complete services in order to cut costs and improve performance. Outsourcing vendors can work either on- or off-site.

See also: In-house, On-site,

PaaS refers to Cloud platform services that provide cloud components for a specific software to be later used in applications. For example, Azure is PaaS.

See also: SaaS (Software-as-a-service), IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-service),

In computing, patch is a set of changes to a given program designed to fix, update, or improve the existing version

See also: Hotfix,

is the process of testing a software’s responsiveness, speed and stability under a certain workload. 

See also: QA (Quality Assurance),

Phishing is a common form of digital fraud, where individuals receive emails (or messages) claiming to come from a reputable source, when in fact they are coming from impostors seeking to gain sensitive private data, e.g. passwords, credit card numbers, etc.

In Scrum, plannings kick off sprints. These are the meetings during which we define what should be delivered in the course of one sprint, what are the main objectives, and what backlog items will be needed.

Plugins function as add-ons that give additional functionality to eg. a web browser or a specific platform.

Project manager is the person taking care of planning, organising, monitoring the development process of the project and ensuring that the tech team delivers it on time. PMs are responsible for communication between the developers and the clients, risk management, etc.

Proof of Concept is a rapid prototype of your application designed with a goal of verifying and testing your product idea. It lets you see and evaluate the potential of your product before committing to actual development. The important aspect of PoC is that it serves to evaluate one or two key aspects of the product

A window that appears on the website while a user is browsing it. Pop-ups are generally used for advertising purposes.

Part of data analytics that deals with analysing past behaviours in order to make accurate predictions about possible future events.

Thanks to product discovery we can help you understand your customers on a deeper level. Then, by heavily relying on the obtained knowledge, we create products designed specifically for the end-users needs. This way you can be certain that the final product perfectly matches the right audience.

A role in the scrum team focused on maximizing the value of the project. A product owner is responsible for the product vision and decisions on what to add to the project next.

Product Strategy is a plan describing what a business hopes to accomplish and how. A well-developed product strategy serves as the roadmap for product development.

Describes a situation in which a company’s product is fit to the target audience, and there’s enough demand for it to sustain growth.

The process of organising the team’s work and resources in order to efficiently complete tasks related to a project and accomplish specific goals.

See also: PM (project manager),

Prototypes are similar to PoC in terms of serving mainly for evaluating the course of product development and reducing the number of mistakes. However, prototypes are more complex, as they cover several functions of the product at once and help testing design, usability, functionality among other things.

The kind of a pop-up message that is sent directly to a user’s device or browser. Push notifications can be used for a variety of different purposes, one of the most popular being, for example, news or weather updates.

A Web app that works like and is visually indistinguishable from a native mobile application.

Popular, high-level, object-oriented programming language. Python can be used in many different fields, including web development, machine learning, game development, data analytics and much more.

As the name suggests, QA is responsible for ensuring everything functions according to the quality requirements set by the industry. Quality assurance helps prevent the majority of issues in the project before releasing it to the general public.

R&D refers to the studies a company runs in order to verify their idea or discover new ways to innovate their products. Research & development helps to establish whether the entire concept is feasible or not, which is why it can focus on both new and already-existing ideas, products, services or processes.

See also: PoC (Proof of concept), MVP (Minimum Viable Product), Prototype,

(AKA React.js) React is an open-source JavaScript library for frontend development that allows building rich User Interfaces with ready-made components. As a frontend framework, React is used for web development.

See also: React Native,

React Native is a JavaScript framework for mobile development. It allows faster and easier development of Android, iOS and web applications with richer UX and higher app quality.

See also: Mobile app,

Used for predicting user preferences and recommending relevant products or services based on those preferences. Recommendation systems are powered by machine learning in order to make the most accurate predictions based on user behaviour.

Web page redirects are used to forward visitors and search engines from one url to another. Redirects are used when deleting pages, changing domain names, or merging websites to avoid losing traffic.

A meeting during which the project requirements are being defined in detail before the next sprint starts.

See also: Scrum, Standup (Scrum meeting),

A Machine Learning method that allows for predicting of a continuous value. Regression can be used for predicting housing prices, sales forecasting or weather predictions.

Responsive web design is a method of creating design that changes the appearance of a website depending on the device, screen size, and orientation.

See also: Adaptive design,

The meeting at the end of a Sprint during which the team identifies potential issues, mistakes, and ways to avoid them. A retrospective is held in order to come up with ways to improve the team’s work in the future.

See also: Scrum, Standup (Scrum meeting),

In the project management and IT industry, roadmaps serve as strategic overviews of all the key elements and steps of a given project. As a rule, it can include goals, milestones, resources, schedule, deliverables, etc.

ROI helps businesses to evaluate performance and efficiency of a given product/service through calculating a difference between the resources invested in its development against the profits it brought.

Ruby on Rails (RoR) is a web app framework written in the Ruby programming language. Even though it’s less popular these days, due to a larger market and competition, RoR was greatly popular and offered a good developer experience. Many upcoming and current frameworks model themselves on it.

Thanks to SaaS, instead of installing and maintaining software or an application to your device, you can access it via the Internet.

See also: IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-service), PaaS (Platform-as-a-service),

In terms of technology, scalability is the ability of an application or software system to be changed according to the needs of the users and/or the company. It’s most often talked about in regards to scaling up, i.e expanding the app’s functionalities.

(AKA Web scraping or data scraping), this is a technique where a special program extracts data from websites or other human-readable outputs for automated replication, formatting or further manipulation.

Also called scripting language, a script is a program or series of commands created with the purpose of being run by another program.

Scrum is an Agile methodology commonly used in software development companies that governs meetings, tools, and team roles that help to enrich the team culture and manage work with higher efficiency. This framework brings higher customer value thanks to its adaptability, flexibility, and speed-centered approach.

See also: Framework, Project Management,

SDK is a collection of software development tools that facilitate the creation of mobile applications by including all the necessary elements for programming and maintenance of a given OS environment in one place.

Search engines use keywords to provide information to users upon requests. The most popular search engines today are Google, Yahoo, and Bing. 

See also: SEO (Search Engine Optimisation),

The process of searching for potential security vulnerabilities and risks in a system, done in order to prevent malicious attacks.

See also: QA (Quality Assurance),

An NLP-based technique used for identifying emotions and opinions of a given text’s author. It can be used, for example, for social media analysis.

A set of practices aiming at optimising a given web site to appear higher on a given SERP ranking.

See also: Search engine,

SERP is where a search engine provides suggested replies to the search query a user has requested. These pages usually include organic and paid results, so website owners adopt many SEO strategies to improve their visibility.

Servers are crucial for any IT infrastructure, as they provide information to all the other computers connected to the same LAN or WAN. Servers are absolutely necessary for maintaining a steady workflow and increasing team productivity.

In Cloud computing, serverless is a method of providing backend services by allocating resources on demand, instead of relying on a specific number of pre-hosted servers. This architecture model allows apps and services to run without managing any specific infrastructure. One of the most popular examples of Serverless Cloud Services is AWS Lambda. 

Sitemaps provide search engines (like Google) with crucial information about your web page. They contain a list of all publicly accessible pages and assets (eg. image) available on your page. Including a sitemap in the HTML code of a website helps bots crawl your page more thoroughly, thus improving your SERP ratings. 

See also: SEO (Search Engine Optimisation),

Software is a comprehensive term that covers a number of programs, procedures, and routines an electronic device needs to function properly. Internet browsers, separate programs like Microsoft Word, or essential functionalities like Operating systems (OSs) and language processors are all the examples of software.

See also: Hardware,

Single Page Applications are a subset of web apps that don’t require you to reload a page while using it. Popular examples of SPAs are Facebook, Gmail, Google Maps. The most popular programming language for SPA development is JavaScript and its frameworks (Angular, React, Vue).

See also: Angular, JavaScript, React, Vue.js, Web app,

Open-source framework used for processing large data sets

A screen that appears when an application is launching, most often in the form of an image with a given app’s logo.

It’s an Agile related term, meaning a short period of time during which a team is working on a selected amount of tasks from the backlog.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a security protocol that ensures the data sent between a server and an application is secure and private.

Meeting during which team members talk about what they worked on the day before, what they will be working on during the current day and what are the potential blockers they may face when completing their tasks.

See also: Retrospective (Scrum meeting), Scrum,

Persistent memory used to store various and generic data, eg. web assets or user generated content and any diagnostic information coming from the app (logs). It’s similar to hard disk storage in your personal computer.

A Machine Learning technique where the algorithm learns on input data labeled for a desired output. It can be used, for example, for creating product recommendations.

See also: Unsupervised learning,

Technology stack is a list of tech services required to build and run an application. Tech stack features programming languages, frameworks, databases, and server providers. Among the most popular tech stacks these days are MEAN, Meteor.js Stack, Flutter, and Ruby on Rails Tech Stack.

A free of charge, open-source machine learning library developed by Google. It makes it easier for professionals to create machine learning models for various platforms.

Tokenization is a form of encryption when you turn a meaningful piece of data into a random set of characters – a token. Tokens can later be used as a reference to the original data, yet cannot be used to decipher the original value. For example, during payment tokenization, a customer provides card details to an e-Commerce store which automatically replaces your sensitive data with a unique randomized token in order to protect it.

TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript designed to locate mistakes early on. It provides a robust static analyzer as well as a type system. This makes the development process more efficient and the code much more stable and predictable.

UI is anything a person sees or interacts with while using a digital product or service. You could say, user interface is about how the product looks, while UX is about how it feels.

See also: GUI (Graphic User Interface), UX (User Experience),

An approach to writing software tests, where the smallest units of a software are verified. Unit testing helps to ensure the quality of the code before deployment, and everything is checked in detail.

A machine learning technique where the algorithm is able to find patterns in unlabeled data. Unsupervised learning is used for revealing information that could remain undiscovered otherwise.

Usability testing helps you evaluate the overall performance and impression of a given product by giving it to representative users. Both development and design teams can benefit from this practice.

See also: QA (Quality Assurance),

During User Interviews we ask end-users about their experience with the product, their impressions of the overall product usability, etc. to collect valuable data for building User Personas and adjusting product strategies.

See also: End-user, User research, UX (User Experience),

User persona is a collective archetype of a perfect user. To create a successful user persona, a researcher needs to analyse their target audience, their habits, behaviours, expectations, and personalities in order to come up with a single-outed archetype. This archetype is later used as a referral during different stages of product development.

See also: Buyer persona,

Described as the methods used to analyze the thought processes, needs, expectations, pain points and motivations of a user base. It aims to help businesses better understand the perspective of a typical user.

User experience covers all the aspects of the end-users interaction with a digital product. It is how the product or a service feels like, how intuitive it is. UX is a more general term, while UI could be seen as one of its elements.

See also: UI (User Interface),

A statement that tells a client why they should choose your service or product. In other words, it is a promise of specific value that the service or product would bring for the client.

A set of development tools made for keeping track of the modifications made in the code. It gives developers the possibility to review older versions of the code, which helps to fix mistakes along the way.

See also: Git,

An Intelligent virtual assistant is a software with capabilities to interact with people using natural language – spoken or written.

They can perform various functions – from being a knowledge repository (eg. chatbots helpers on bank sites), to more versatile tasks such as taking notes, scheduling calendar events or searching for queries.

See also: Voice assistant, Chatbot,

Virtualisation refers to creating virtual rather than real-life versions of computers and/or hardware. It helps to improve workload management and make computing more scalable.

Computer virus is a type of self-replicable computer program, made to modify the way in which a computer operates. The key problem with viruses is that they work independently from human intervention and can affect numerous files and/or programs in a short period of time.

Voice assistants (VA) are AI-powered digital assistants that respond to spoken commands. For example, VAs like Siri (Apple) or Alexa (Amazon) can perform various tasks like making a call, answering questions, playing music, or making to-do lists.

See also: Virtual assistant,

Interface that enables a software application to understand spoken commands. The most popular example of a VUI in use are voice assistants.

VPN is a tool that gives users online privacy and grants anonymity by creating a private network from a public internet connection. Thanks to a VPN, you can change the way your provider sees your physical location or your IP address. Nowadays VPNs are commonly used for protecting users’ digital privacy or conducting remote work.

See also: Encryption,

VR is a computer-generated 3D simulation that allows users a high level of immersion and interactivity. In order for a VR environment to function properly, a user needs additional equipment, such as sensor gloves, special goggles or a helmet.

See also: Augmented Reality,

A popular and versatile JavaScript frontend framework commonly used on the web, but with capabilities to build cross-platform applications. It’s an open-source project with a large community.

A telecommunications network that covers a large territory area for the purpose of computer networking. A Wide Area Network is made up of several LANs (Local Area Networks).

Unlike desktop or mobile apps, web applications don’t need specific hardware to function, as they run directly in a web browser on many different devices.

See also: Desktop app, Mobile app, PWA (Progressive Web Application), SPA (Single Page Application),

Web development refers to building and maintaining websites.The most popular languages used for web development are: HTML, CSS, Java, JS, and Python. 

Don’t mistake web development for application development, since the two use different tech stacks.

A process of traversing the contents of a website or an app. A smooth website navigation is ensured by way of such elements as menus, footers, sidebars or internal links.

See also: Breadcrumbs,

A software testing technique of  internal structure of an application. White box testing is characterized by the fact that the tester is familiar with the app’s structure, which differentiates the technique from black box testing.

Widgets are small applications that are capable of performing specific interactive functions. They may be found on a mobile device or a website,
and can be described as “at-a-glance” views of an app’s most important data and functionality that is accessible right from the user’s home screen.

Wireframe is a schematic, visual guide of an app UI that aims to explain how the app is going to look, what functionalities it’ll have, and how users are expected to interact with the product. However, wireframes don’t usually feature any design specifications, like color schemes, styling, or graphical solutions.

See also: Mood board, UX (User Experience), UI (User Interface),

WordPress is one of the most popular CMSs for website and blog creation. It is quite easy-to-navigate and is one of the most flexible editors, so it’s often used by beginners and non-IT individuals. Thanks to a variety of plugins and add-ons WordPress is highly functional. 

See also: Headless CMS,

Workshops are personalised sessions with your project development team and other product stakeholders with a specific focus. Workshops can last anything between a couple of hours and a couple of days and aim at providing an in-depth understanding of the topic.

See also: Product Bootcamp,

XP is an agile framework designed to produce higher quality software for customers and better experience for developers.

See also: Scrum,