Glossary
Terms used in accessibility research and practice. Each entry has a definition, common aliases, and category tags.
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- GOMS(also: Goals, Operators, Methods, and Selection rules, KLM, Keystroke-Level Model)
- A family of human-computer interaction models used to predict how long it will take a user to complete a task with a given interface. GOMS stands for Goals, Operators, Methods, and Selection rules — the four components used to describe user behavior. The simplest variant, the…
- Galvanic Skin Response(also: GSR, Electrodermal Activity, EDA)
- A physiological measurement technique that detects changes in the electrical conductance of the skin caused by sweat gland activity. Because sweat glands are controlled by the sympathetic nervous system, GSR provides an objective indicator of emotional arousal, stress, and…
- Game accessibility(also: Gaming accessibility, Accessible gaming)
- The practice of designing video games and interactive entertainment so they can be played and enjoyed by people with disabilities. Game accessibility encompasses a wide range of considerations including remappable controls for motor impairments, audio cues and sonification for…
- Gamification
- The application of game design elements — such as points, rewards, competition, collection mechanics, and progress tracking — in non-game contexts to increase engagement and motivation. In accessibility work, gamification has been used to encourage people to contribute…
- Gesture Input(also: Gesture Recognition, Gesture-Based Interaction)
- An input method that uses physical movements of the body — typically hands, fingers, arms, or head — to interact with digital systems. Gesture input includes touchscreen gestures (swipes, taps, pinches), mid-air gestures detected by cameras or motion sensors, and motion gestures…
- Gesture-Based Input(also: Gesture input, Gestural input, Gesture-based text entry)
- An input method that interprets finger or hand movements — such as swipes, taps, and drawn paths — as commands or text characters. For people with visual impairments, gesture-based input on touchscreens offers an alternative to traditional keyboard layouts that require targeting…
- Gesture-Based Interaction(also: Gesture Control, Gestural Input)
- A mode of human-computer interaction where users control digital systems through hand or body movements detected by cameras or sensors, rather than through traditional input devices. In mixed reality headsets like the HoloLens 2, gesture-based interactions include touching,…
- Graphical User Interface(also: GUI, WIMP Interface)
- A visual interface paradigm based on windows, icons, menus, and pointer (WIMP) interaction, which became dominant in personal computing from the late 1980s onward. GUIs represented a major accessibility challenge when they replaced text-based command lines: screen readers…
- Grid Recursion(also: Recursive Grid Navigation, Hierarchical Grid)
- A navigation technique where a grid cell can be further subdivided into a finer sub-grid, allowing users to achieve progressively more precise positioning through successive levels of refinement. For example, a 3x3 top-level grid provides 9 positions; descending one level into a…
- Grid-Based Interface(also: Grid Navigation Interface)
- An interaction paradigm that divides a screen or workspace into a grid of cells, allowing users to navigate by specifying grid coordinates rather than precise pixel positions. Grid-based interfaces are particularly valuable for non-visual access because they provide a structured…
- Guiard's Theory of Asymmetric Bimanual Action(also: Guiard kinematic chain model, Asymmetric bimanual action model)
- Yves Guiard's 1987 model describing how the two hands typically take complementary, asymmetric roles in everyday manual tasks. The non-dominant hand sets a coarse spatial frame of reference that the dominant hand operates within, the non-dominant hand precedes the dominant hand…
- Gulf of Execution
- A concept from Don Norman's theory of action describing the gap between a user's intention and the actions available to achieve that goal through an interface. When the gulf of execution is large, users struggle to figure out how to operate a system to accomplish their…
12 results.