Glossary

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AI Verification(also: Accessible AI Verification, AI Output Verification)

The process of checking and confirming the accuracy of AI-generated output, particularly by end users who may not have visual access to the original content. For blind users, AI verification is challenging because they cannot visually compare AI output against source material.…

Access to Information(also: Information Access)

In the context of web accessibility, the concept that certain accessibility criteria are fundamentally about whether users can reach and perceive content at all, as distinct from criteria that improve the quality or experience of that access. Access to information serves as a…

Accessibility(also: A11y)

The design of products, devices, services, environments, and systems so that they can be used by people with the widest range of abilities, including those with disabilities. In digital contexts, accessibility means ensuring websites, applications, and content are perceivable,…

Accessibility Allyship(also: Disability Allyship, A11y Allyship)

The practice of non-disabled individuals actively supporting and advocating for people with disabilities by learning about accessibility barriers, amplifying disabled voices, and taking concrete actions to create more inclusive environments. In technology and computer science…

Accessibility Chain(also: Accessibility Chain of Custody, Chain of Accessibility)

The concept that accessibility must be maintained throughout every link in a sequence of interactions, documents, or systems that a user must navigate to complete a task. If any single link in the chain is inaccessible, the entire process becomes inaccessible regardless of how…

Accessibility First(also: Shift Left Accessibility, Built-In Accessibility)

A design and pedagogical philosophy that treats accessibility as a foundational requirement from the very beginning of a project or course of study, rather than addressing it as an advanced topic or retrofit at the end. The term draws an analogy to building construction:…

Accessibility Retrofitting(also: Retrofitting, Accessibility Remediation)

The process of modifying existing products, websites, buildings, or systems after the fact to make them accessible to people with disabilities. Retrofitting is typically more expensive, time-consuming, and less elegant than designing for accessibility from the start, often…

Accessibility Workaround(also: A11y Workaround, Assistive Workaround)

An alternative method, process, or tool that people with disabilities develop or adopt to accomplish tasks that are blocked by inaccessible design. Workarounds represent the hidden labor that disabled people must invest to navigate inaccessible systems — creating parallel…

Age-Related Capability Decline(also: Age-Related Impairment, Dynamic Diversity)

The gradual reduction in sensory, motor, and cognitive capabilities that typically accompanies ageing, including declining visual acuity, hearing loss, reduced dexterity and fine motor control, and changes in memory and processing speed. Unlike many disabilities that are stable…

Age-Related Functional Limitations(also: Ageing-Related Accessibility Needs, Age-Related Impairments)

The gradual changes in sensory, motor, and cognitive abilities that commonly occur with ageing, including declining vision, hearing loss, reduced dexterity and fine motor control, and changes in memory and processing speed. These functional limitations often overlap…

Age-Sensitive Design(also: Age-Sensitive Creative AI Mediation)

A design stance that treats age-related physical, cognitive, and digital-literacy characteristics as first-class inputs to the system design process rather than as edge cases to be handled after the fact. For interactive and AI-supported tools, age-sensitive design typically…

Bespoke Accessibility(also: Personalised Accessibility, Individualized Access)

An approach to accessibility that recognises each person's access needs are unique and may conflict with those of others, requiring individually tailored rather than one-size-fits-all solutions. Bespoke accessibility goes beyond standard guidelines by acknowledging that what…

Blind Epistemology

Ways of knowing and understanding the world as a blind person, which are fluid, relational, and shaped by touch, sound, memory, spatial familiarity, and social interaction rather than visual perception. Blind epistemology recognizes that blind people develop rich, valid…

Born Accessible(also: Born-Accessible, Accessibility-First)

An approach to content creation where accessibility is designed in from the beginning rather than retrofitted afterward. Born accessible content is created with accessibility requirements as core specifications, ensuring that people with disabilities can access it immediately…

Capability Sensitive Design

A design approach, proposed by Ilse Oosterlaken, that takes human diversity morally seriously and evaluates technologies by how they actually expand or constrain the real opportunities (capabilities) available to individual users. Capability Sensitive Design extends the…

Collective Communication Access(also: CCA)

A framework developed by McDonnell et al. (2023) that reconceptualises communication access as a shared, co-constructed practice distributed across everyone involved in an interaction, rather than as an individual accommodation provided to disabled participants. CCA argues that…

Community-Centered Design(also: Community-Based Design)

A design approach that centers the expertise, needs, and perspectives of specific communities throughout the technology development process, rather than designing for communities from the outside. In accessibility, community-centered design involves blind and disabled…

Contrast Sensitivity

The ability to distinguish between objects and their background based on differences in luminance or color. Contrast sensitivity is distinct from visual acuity and can be reduced even when acuity is relatively preserved. People with poor contrast sensitivity may struggle to read…

Curb Cut Effect(also: Curb Cut Phenomenon, Electronic Curb Cut)

The phenomenon whereby accessibility features designed for people with disabilities end up benefiting a much broader population. Named after sidewalk curb cuts — ramps originally mandated for wheelchair users that also help people with strollers, bicycles, rolling luggage,…

Curb-Cut Effect(also: Electronic Curb Cut)

The phenomenon whereby features designed for people with disabilities end up benefiting a much broader population. Named after pavement curb cuts originally mandated for wheelchair users, which also help parents with pushchairs, delivery workers with carts, cyclists, and…

Customizability(also: Customization, Personalization)

The ability for users to modify and configure a system's interface, interaction methods, and behavior to match their individual needs and preferences. In accessibility contexts, customizability is a core design principle that acknowledges the diversity of disabled users'…

Data Feminism

A framework developed by Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren Klein that applies intersectional feminist thought to the practice of working with data, offering seven principles including examining power, challenging power, elevating emotion and embodiment, rethinking binaries,…

Digital Equity(also: Digital Equality)

The condition in which all individuals and communities have equal access to, use of, and ability to benefit from digital technologies, regardless of disability, socioeconomic status, geographic location, or other factors. In workplace contexts, digital equity means ensuring that…

Disability

A complex, multidimensional concept encompassing physical, sensory, cognitive, and psychosocial differences that interact with societal barriers to limit full participation. The social model of disability distinguishes between impairment (a bodily difference) and disability (the…

Disability Awareness(also: Disability Awareness Training)

The understanding and recognition of the experiences, challenges, and rights of people with disabilities. Disability awareness encompasses knowledge of different types of disabilities, the barriers (physical, digital, attitudinal, and systemic) that people with disabilities…

Disability Interaction(also: DIX)

A challenge-based approach and manifesto for creating a more inclusive world where disability can be an inspiration for innovation and creativity, and where inclusion is the norm. Proposed by Catherine Holloway and colleagues, Disability Interaction (DIX) places people with…

Electronic Curb-Cut Effect(also: Digital Curb-Cut Effect, Curb-Cut Effect)

The phenomenon where accessibility features originally designed for people with disabilities end up benefiting a much wider population. Named after physical curb cuts in sidewalks — originally mandated for wheelchair users but widely used by people with strollers, delivery…

Employment Accessibility(also: Workplace Accessibility, Job Accessibility, Accessible Employment)

The broad concept of ensuring that all aspects of finding, applying for, interviewing for, and performing a job are accessible to people with disabilities. Employment accessibility encompasses accessible job postings, application systems, interview accommodations, pre-employment…

Enforced Trust(also: Compelled Trust)

A dynamic in which blind people are required to trust technologies, sighted individuals, and systems without having independent means to verify the information or outputs provided to them. Enforced trust arises from the knowledge imbalance where blind users cannot directly…

Error Tolerance(also: Error Prevention, Forgiveness)

A design principle requiring that systems anticipate, prevent, and gracefully handle user errors. In accessible design, error tolerance means providing clear validation messages, allowing users to undo actions, confirming destructive operations, and ensuring that mistakes do not…

Fluctuating Access Needs(also: Dynamic Access Needs, Variable Access Needs)

Accessibility requirements that change over time for a single individual, varying based on factors such as energy levels, symptoms, time of day, environment, medication, menstrual cycle, cognitive load, and fatigue. Common among people with chronic illnesses, neurodivergence,…

Functional Equivalency(also: Functional Equivalence, Communication Equivalence)

The principle that accommodations and alternative formats should provide people with disabilities an experience that is comparable in quality, timeliness, and completeness to that of non-disabled users. In the context of communication access, functional equivalency means that a…

Holistic Accessibility(also: Holistic Approach to Accessibility)

Holistic accessibility is an approach that considers web accessibility not as an isolated technical concern but as one factor within a broader context including usability, user experience, audience characteristics, usage environment, available technologies, and organizational…

Human-Centered Design(also: HCD, User-Centered Design, UCD)

A design approach that prioritizes the needs, capabilities, and experiences of end users throughout the design process. Popularized by IDEO and formalized in ISO 9241-210, human-centered design involves iterative cycles of understanding user context, specifying requirements,…

Input Redundancy

A design principle that provides multiple alternative ways to accomplish the same input action, ensuring that users can interact with a system regardless of their specific abilities. In VR accessibility, input redundancy means offering controller input alongside hand tracking,…

Multimodal Interface(also: Multimodal Interaction, Multi-Modal UI)

A multimodal interface is a system that communicates with users through multiple sensory channels simultaneously, such as speech, haptic feedback, sound, vibration, and visual output. In accessible navigation and assistive technology, multimodal interfaces are critical because…

Music Notation Accessibility

The practice of making written music scores perceivable and usable by musicians with visual impairments and other disabilities. This encompasses the creation of alternative formats like Braille Music, Modified Stave Notation, and large print music, as well as the development of…

OM Principle(also: Object Model Principle)

A design principle for accessible digital content stating that any digital object is made more accessible by using the application's designated object model for that content rather than visual workarounds. For example, graph titles should be entered in the graphing application's…

Preference Customization(also: User Preference Configuration, Personalization Settings)

The ability for users, particularly those using assistive technologies, to configure how they receive and interact with digital content based on their individual needs, preferences, and context. In accessibility, preference customization goes beyond basic assistive technology…

Presumed Competence(also: Least Dangerous Assumption)

The principle that all individuals should be assumed capable and intelligent regardless of whether their abilities are displayed in ways that conform to societal norms. Advocated particularly by nonspeaking neurodivergent individuals and those with intellectual disabilities,…

Privacy by Design(also: PbD)

A framework that embeds privacy protections into the design and architecture of systems and business practices from the outset, rather than adding them as afterthoughts. In the context of visual assistance technologies, privacy by design encompasses on-device processing, data…

Procedural Accessibility

An aspect of web accessibility that addresses the consistency and clarity of interaction sequences and workflows within digital systems. Procedural accessibility ensures that similar services follow the same patterns of interaction — for example, all online purchasing processes…

Psychological Accessibility

A dimension of accessibility concerned with whether users find a product or service useful, appropriate, and satisfying, beyond being merely technically operable. Psychological accessibility addresses factors such as user confidence, willingness to engage with technology, and…

Relational Sovereignty

A framework proposed by Jang, Carrington and Begel (2026) as a new goal (telos) for socially assistive technology, defined as the recognised authority of a disabled person to choose their relational mode — acting independently or interdependently — and to set the terms on which…

Semantic Accessibility

An approach to web accessibility that focuses on the predictability and consistency of user interface behavior, layout, and interaction patterns rather than the underlying code. Semantic accessibility ensures that similar elements appear in the same locations across pages, menus…

Sensory Accessibility

The design of environments, technologies, and experiences to accommodate people with diverse sensory processing needs, including those with heightened or reduced sensitivity to sound, light, touch, smell, or movement. Sensory accessibility extends beyond traditional visual and…

Sighted Bias(also: Visual Bias, Ocularcentrism)

The tendency in technology design to privilege sighted ways of perceiving and understanding the world, often unconsciously centering visual sensibilities in interfaces, descriptions, and assessment criteria. In accessibility contexts, sighted bias manifests when designers create…

Sighted-Centric Design(also: Vision-Centric Design)

Design approaches and practices that privilege sighted sensemaking and marginalize blind and non-visual ways of relating to the world. Sighted-centered design produces technologies, interfaces, and descriptive standards that assume visual perception as the default mode of…

Situational Disability(also: Situational Impairment, Contextual Disability)

A temporary limitation in ability caused by environmental circumstances rather than a permanent condition. Examples include being unable to read a screen in bright sunlight (visual), not hearing audio in a noisy environment (auditory), being unable to use two hands while…

Situationally-Induced Impairments and Disabilities(also: SIIDs, Situationally Induced Impairments and Disabilities, Situation-Induced Disabilities)

An accessibility framework, introduced by Sears et al., that describes how everyday environments and tasks can temporarily impose the same kinds of barriers on non-disabled users that permanent impairments create for disabled users. Examples include reading a phone in bright sun…