Glossary

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Access as Friction

A disability-studies framing, articulated by Jackson, Haagaard, and Williams, that reframes accessibility work as productive friction rather than seamless accommodation. Rather than smoothing every interaction, "access as friction" calls for designs that make users pause,…

Agential Realism

A theoretical framework developed by physicist-philosopher Karen Barad that rejects the idea of pre-existing, independent subjects and objects, arguing instead that phenomena emerge through specific "intra-actions" between apparatus and matter. Applied to accessibility research,…

Biomedicalization of Aging(also: Medicalization of Aging)

The tendency, identified by critical gerontologists, to reduce the complexity of later life to problems of physical and cognitive decline requiring medical or technological intervention. Biomedicalization frames older adults as patients rather than citizens, and positions…

Compulsory Able-Bodiedness(also: Compulsory Ableness)

A concept from disability studies scholar Robert McRuer describing the pervasive social assumption that all people should aspire to and perform able-bodiedness as the default, desirable state. Like compulsory heterosexuality, compulsory able-bodiedness operates as an invisible…

Crip Epistemology(also: Cripistemology)

A framework for understanding how disability produces distinct forms of knowledge that challenge dominant, ableist ways of knowing. Rooted in crip theory and disability studies, crip epistemologies recognize that disabled bodyminds generate situated, embodied knowledge through…

Crip Technoscience(also: Critical Disability Technoscience)

A framework articulated by Aimi Hamraie and Kelly Fritsch that examines how disabled people engage with, repurpose, and create technologies from their own embodied knowledge and political standpoints. The Crip Technoscience Manifesto advocates for technology research and design…

Crip Theory(also: Crip Studies, Critical Disability Theory)

A theoretical framework that reclaims the word "crip" (from "cripple") as a positive identity and analytical lens for challenging normative assumptions about bodies, ability, and disability. Rooted in disability studies and informed by queer theory, crip theory critiques…

Critical Disability Theory(also: Critical Disability Studies, CDT)

An interdisciplinary theoretical framework that examines disability as a social, political, and cultural phenomenon rather than solely a medical condition. Critical disability theory draws on disability studies, critical theory, and intersectional analysis to challenge dominant…

Critical Discourse Analysis(also: CDA)

An interdisciplinary research methodology that examines how language and texts both reflect and shape power structures, ideologies, and social practices. Originating from the work of Michel Foucault, CDA uses abductive reasoning — moving between theory-driven deductive analysis…

Critical Gerontology

An interdisciplinary approach to the study of aging that critiques the dominant biomedical framing of later life and foregrounds structural, political, and cultural influences on older people's experiences. Critical gerontology rejects the "discourse of decline" in which aging…

Critical Race Theory(also: CRT)

Critical Race Theory is a scholarly framework originating in legal studies that examines how laws, policies, and institutions perpetuate racial inequality, even in the absence of overt individual racism. It positions race as a social construct embedded in systems of power rather…

Designing with Friction(also: Friction by Design)

An HCI design stance, associated with Matthias Korn and Amy Voida, that argues for deliberately introducing friction into interactive systems to surface politics, provoke reflection, and enable democratic contention — rather than pursuing frictionless user experience as a…

DisCrit(also: Disability Critical Race Studies, Dis/ability Critical Race Studies)

DisCrit (Disability Critical Race Studies) is a theoretical framework that merges Disability Studies with Critical Race Theory to analyze how racism and ableism are interdependent systems that work together to marginalize people at the intersection of race and disability.…

Disability Aesthetics

A discourse related to reclaiming the visibility of disability in mainstream art, particularly visual and performance arts, through the depiction of disabled bodies as both beautiful and inspiring. Unlike disability art, disability aesthetics does not necessarily carry a social…

Disability Justice(also: DJ)

A framework developed by disabled queer and trans people of color — including Patty Berne, Mia Mingus, Stacey Milbern, Eli Clare, and Leroy Moore through Sins Invalid — that recognizes disability as intersecting with race, class, gender, sexuality, and other axes of oppression.…

Feminist HCI

An approach to human-computer interaction research and design articulated by Shaowen Bardzell that brings feminist theory, values, and methods into HCI practice. Feminist HCI foregrounds pluralism, embodiment, ecology, advocacy, self-disclosure, and participation; critiques…

Infrastructural Inversion

A methodological move, articulated by Geoffrey Bowker and Susan Leigh Star, that foregrounds the usually invisible infrastructure underpinning everyday action — categories, standards, procedures, silent stabilising work — treating it as the primary object of analysis rather than…

Logocentrism

In captioning studies, the systematic prioritization of speech and spoken language over non-speech sounds in captioning practices and technologies. Logocentrism in captioning manifests as speech captions receiving more attention, resources, and technical development than…

Neuroqueer Technoscience

A theoretical framework, developed by Nick Walker and extended in HCI by Barros Pena, Williams and others, that builds on crip technoscience and the neuroqueer paradigm to position neurodivergent people as active agents who remake worlds, technologies, and social relations.…

Non-Use(also: Technology Non-Use, Technology Refusal)

A research tradition in HCI that takes seriously the choice not to use a technology — treating refusal, abandonment, and selective engagement as meaningful, reasoned behaviour rather than as failure. Non-use scholarship (Wyatt, Baumer, Satchell & Dourish, Waycott and colleagues)…

Queer Theory in HCI(also: Queering HCI, Queer Design)

The application of queer theory to human-computer interaction research and design, challenging heteronormative and binary assumptions embedded in technology. Queer theory in HCI questions how technologies enforce normative identities around gender, sexuality, and embodiment, and…

Resistant Reading(also: Reading Against the Grain, Resistant Reader)

A critical reading method, originally articulated by feminist literary theorist Judith Fetterley, that refuses the interpretive framework an author invites the reader to adopt and instead reads texts for what they silence, marginalise, or explain away. In HCI and accessibility…

Situated Knowledge(also: Situated Knowledges)

A concept from feminist epistemology, developed by Donna Haraway, holding that all knowledge is produced from particular social, bodily, and historical positions rather than from a neutral, objective standpoint. In disability studies and accessibility research, situated…

Socio-Gerontechnology

A theoretical framework, developed by Alexander Peine and Louis Neven, that analyses aging and technology as mutually constitutive: technologies do not simply serve pre-existing aging needs, and aging is not a pre-given biological fact — the two co-produce each other through…

Techno-Solutionism(also: Technological Solutionism, Tech Solutionism)

The belief that technology can solve complex social, political, and cultural problems, often without addressing underlying systemic causes. In accessibility, techno-solutionism manifests as the assumption that building the right assistive device or application will resolve the…

WEIRD(also: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic)

An acronym standing for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic — used to describe the demographic and cultural profile of populations that dominate research samples in psychology, HCI, and accessibility studies. The term highlights a significant bias: most…

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