As you build apps with AI through vibe coding, you'll start seeing words and phrases that may be unfamiliar. These terms often appear in an AI's explanations or chat responses. Knowing what they mean will help you better understand the AI and write more effective prompts and follow-up requests.
Building Your App
Feature
A specific capability of your app.
Placeholder
Temporary text or content that will be replaced later.
Validation
Checking whether user input is acceptable before using it.
Error handling
Deciding what your app should do when something unexpected happens instead of crashing.
Empty state
What the app shows when there's no content yet, such as “No responses yet.â€
Testing & Improving
Sanity check
A quick test to make sure something basically works before spending more time on it.
Happy path
The ideal scenario where users do exactly what you expect.
Edge case
An unusual situation that can break your app. For example, a student enters nothing or types 10,000 characters.
Regression
A feature that used to work but stopped working after changes were made.
Refactor
Improve the code without changing what the app does. AI assistants often suggest this.
Rollback
Revert to an earlier version after a change causes problems.
Designing for Users
UI
User Interface. Everything users see and interact with.
UX
User Experience. How easy and enjoyable your app is to use.
Accessibility
Designing so everyone, including people with disabilities, can use your app.
Responsive
An app that adjusts to different screen sizes.
Scale to fit
Resize content so it fits within the available space while keeping its proportions.
Sharing & Running
Rate limit
A restriction on how many AI requests can be made in a certain amount of time.
Ship
To consider an app or feature finished enough to publish or share with others.
Deploy
To publish your app so others can use it.
Want to describe your app to AI with more precision? Check out Shana Ramin's User Interface Elements Interactive Gallery. It introduces dozens of common interface elements, such as accordions, breadcrumbs, cards, dialogs, tabs, and tooltips. Learning these names can make your prompts much more specific, helping AI create an app that's closer to what you have in mind.
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