Time for another Jargon Buster and seeing as it’s such a magical time of year, the choice of jargon to de-code was an easy one…
A combination, believe it or not, of ‘automatically’ and ‘magically’- ‘automagically’ can be used to describe some feature of a website with a hidden technical process behind it, but one that runs smoothly on the surface, as if by magic.
It’s also used by some programmers as a ‘funny’ way of explaining something that is too complicated to easily explain. Or more complexly, a process that combines machine-logic with contextual manipulation on the part of a human – but we’ll just ignore that last one.
‘So why can’t every functional aspect of a website be described automagically?’ asked the plucky content editor to the Purple Technical Team. After all, every functional aspect of a website (i.e. a search or shop) runs smoothly (if we've built it anyhow) but has some technical process working behind the scenes.
The key here is ‘auto’, with little or no input from the user, a complex process will be ticking away to achieve the desired piece of functionality on a site, which runs smoothly, instantaneously and inexplicably for the user.