Glossary

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AI Content Describer(also: NVDA AI Content Describer)

AI Content Describer is an add-on for the NVDA screen reader that uses multimodal AI models to generate descriptions of on-screen visual content — images, controls, icons, charts, and arbitrary screen regions — on demand. It gives NVDA users a JAWS-Picture-Smart-equivalent…

ARIA Live Region(also: Live Region, aria-live)

A section of a web page marked with the aria-live attribute that is dynamically updated and should be announced by assistive technologies when changes occur, even if the user's focus is elsewhere. Live regions have politeness levels: "polite" (announced at the next convenient…

Anchor Text(also: Link Text, Hyperlink Text)

The visible, clickable text within a hypertext link that is intended to describe the link's destination or purpose. Descriptive anchor text (e.g., "download the annual report") provides clear information about what the user will find when they follow the link, while vague anchor…

Audio Enriched Links(also: AEL, Audio Link Preview)

A JAWS screen reader extension that provides spoken previews of linked web pages before a blind user follows a hyperlink. When activated on a focused link, the system fetches the destination page in the background and speaks a summary including the page title, its relationship…

Aural Eavesdropping(also: Audio Eavesdropping, Auditory Shoulder Surfing)

A security attack in which an unauthorized person overhears sensitive information such as passwords, PINs, or personal data being spoken aloud. This is a particular concern for people who are blind or have low vision because screen readers announce all on-screen content audibly,…

Aural Glancing

The auditory equivalent of visually glancing at a web page — the ability for screen reader users to quickly get a sense of what sections and content are available on a page without being forced to listen to every element serially. Aural glancing aims to bridge the fundamental…

Brute-Force Fallback(also: Reset Strategy, Exhaustive Recovery)

A workaround strategy employed by assistive technology users when standard interaction methods fail, involving systematically trying all available options or completely restarting a task from a known good state. Brute-force fallbacks are particularly common among screen reader…

Cell Navigation(also: Table Cell Navigation, Cell-by-Cell Navigation)

Cell navigation is a method of accessing tabular data non-visually by moving between individual cells using directional commands (up, down, left, right). Rather than reading a table linearly from top-to-bottom, cell navigation allows screen reader users to traverse the…

Conditional Formatting

Conditional formatting is a spreadsheet feature that automatically applies visual styles — fill color, font color, bold text, icons, data bars — to cells whose values meet specified rules (for example, highlighting failing grades in red or above-average sales in green). It is…

Conversational Glanceability(also: Conversational Layout Support)

A proposed design approach that uses conversational AI agents to provide blind and visually impaired users with the equivalent of visual glanceability—the ability to quickly scan and identify content of interest on a page. Sighted users can rapidly skim visual layouts to locate…

Coping Strategies(also: Coping Tactics, Workaround Strategies)

The techniques and approaches that users with disabilities develop to navigate around accessibility barriers they encounter on the web and in digital interfaces. Expert screen reader users, for example, employ strategies such as using element lists, virtual search, heading…

Defluffing(also: Content Defluffing, Clutter Removal)

The process of removing non-essential visual elements from a web page — such as banners, advertisements, decorative images, and sidebar content — to expose the core information content more directly to assistive technology users. In the context of web accessibility transcoding,…

Direct Speech Access(also: Speech-Enabling)

An approach to providing speech output where applications generate spoken feedback directly from their semantic context, as opposed to the traditional screen-reading approach where an external program interprets the visual display. In direct speech access, each application has…

Emacspeak(also: The Emacspeak Audio Desktop)

A free, open-source speech output system built on top of the Emacs text editor that provides complete auditory access to a computing environment for blind and visually impaired users. Created by T. V. Raman in 1994 and still actively maintained, Emacspeak pioneered the concept…

Emoji(also: Emojis)

Small pictographic characters — faces, gestures, objects, symbols — encoded as Unicode code points and rendered by platform-specific font sets, used to convey affect, tone, and non-verbal nuance in otherwise text-based or visually-limited communication. For accessibility, emoji…

Explore by Touch(also: Touch Exploration)

A screen reader interaction mode on touchscreen devices in which users drag their finger across the screen to discover and hear descriptions of interface elements beneath their fingertip. When Explore by Touch is active, a single tap does not activate a control — instead, the…

JAWS for Windows(also: JFW)

JAWS (Job Access With Speech) for Windows is a commercial screen reader from Freedom Scientific (now Vispero) that provides speech and braille output for blind and low-vision users on the Windows operating system. The JFW mailing list and user group (jfw.groups.io) is one of the…

Linearization(also: Content linearization, Serial presentation)

The process by which screen readers convert two-dimensional visual page layouts into a single sequential audio stream, reading content in DOM order. Linearization strips away spatial relationships, visual groupings, and layout cues that sighted users rely on for navigation and…

Link Context(also: Anchor Context, Link Surrounding Context)

The text and information surrounding a hypertext link that helps users understand the link's purpose and destination. For sighted users, link context is often apparent from the visual layout — headings, images, and nearby text provide clues about what a link does. For screen…

Mercator

A research screen reader system developed at the Georgia Institute of Technology by W. Keith Edwards and Elizabeth Mynatt for the X Window System on Unix workstations. Mercator pioneered the approach of providing access to graphical user interfaces at the semantic level —…

Microscopic Navigation(also: Within-Page Navigation, Page-Level Navigation)

The process by which screen reader users navigate through individual elements and content within a single web page to find relevant information, as distinct from site-wide navigation between pages. Microscopic navigation involves detecting relevant content and skipping…

NVDA(also: NonVisual Desktop Access)

A free, open-source screen reader for Microsoft Windows developed by NV Access. NVDA enables people who are blind or have low vision to use computers by reading on-screen text aloud through a speech synthesizer or outputting to a refreshable Braille display. As open-source…

Navigation Axis(also: Multi-Axial Navigation, Axis-Based Navigation)

A navigation axis is a concept from screen reader research describing a specific linear serialization of a subset of web page elements that represents one navigation strategy. Rather than forcing blind users through a single reading order (the DOM order), a multi-axial…

Navigation Order(also: Focus Order, Tab Order, Reading Order)

The sequence in which a user encounters interface elements when navigating with assistive technology, a keyboard, or other non-visual means. A logical navigation order follows the visual layout and semantic structure of the page, typically moving left-to-right and top-to-bottom…

Non-Visual Web Browser(also: Self-Voicing Browser, Audio Web Browser, Talking Browser)

A web browser specifically designed for users who cannot see the screen, providing audio-based or haptic interfaces for navigating and interacting with web content. Unlike standard screen readers that overlay existing visual browsers, non-visual browsers are purpose-built to…

Off-Screen Model(also: OSM, Virtual Buffer)

A data structure maintained by screen readers that represents the content and structure of the visual display in a form that can be navigated non-visually. Traditional screen readers intercept system calls to build this off-screen model because they did not have direct access to…

PC-Talker(also: PCTalker)

A Windows screen reader developed by the Japanese company KGS Corporation, widely used by blind and low-vision users in Japan. PC-Talker provides speech output for Windows applications and the web and integrates with the companion Net Reader Neo browser tailored to…

Page Fragmentation(also: Visual Fragmentation, Content Fragmentation)

A web accessibility problem where different types of content on a web page (news articles, advertisements, navigation menus, related links) are visually grouped using colours, spacing, images, and layout but lack structural markup that would allow non-visual users to identify…

Page Linearization(also: Content Linearization, DOM Linearization, Source Order)

The process by which screen readers and other assistive technologies present web page content as a sequential, one-dimensional stream of text, typically following the order of elements in the HTML source code. Since web pages are designed as two-dimensional visual layouts where…

Picture Smart AI(also: JAWS Picture Smart AI)

Picture Smart AI is a feature of the JAWS screen reader (Freedom Scientific/Vispero) that uses multimodal AI models to describe images, charts, and on-screen content on demand. It can describe a photo, explain a chart, read text embedded in an image, or answer follow-up…

Probing(also: Link Probing, Exploratory Browsing)

Probing is a browsing behavior where a user follows a link to see where it leads and then immediately returns to the previous page. It is commonly observed among blind and screen reader users as a coping strategy when the link text or surrounding context does not provide enough…

Screen Reader Proxy

An interface that sits between an automated agent or testing tool and an application, translating programmatic inputs (swipe, double-tap, type) into genuine screen reader gestures and capturing the resulting announcements as structured transcripts. Unlike driving an app via its…

Screen Reader/2(also: IBM Screen Reader/2, SR/2)

Screen Reader/2 was an early screen reader developed by IBM for the OS/2 operating system, first released in the early 1990s. It was one of the pioneering commercial screen readers, providing blind and visually impaired users with text-to-speech and audio output to access…

Screen Recognition

A computer vision feature in Apple's VoiceOver screen reader that automatically interprets the pixels of a graphical user interface to identify and label interactive elements when applications have not properly implemented accessibility APIs. Screen Recognition analyses the…

Self-Voicing Interface(also: Self-Voicing, Self-Voicing Application)

A software application or interface that includes its own built-in speech output capability, rather than relying on a separate screen reader to interpret and voice its content. Self-voicing interfaces generate speech directly, giving them greater control over what is spoken and…

Skimming(also: Scanning, Speed Reading, Content Skimming)

Skimming is a speed-reading technique in which a reader quickly glances through text to get the general idea or gist without reading every word. Sighted readers skim by scanning headlines, bold text, first sentences of paragraphs, and visually prominent content. For blind and…

Speech-Based Navigation(also: Audio Navigation, Speech-Based Web Navigation)

A method of navigating digital content, particularly web pages, using synthesised speech output rather than visual display. In speech-based navigation, users listen to content read aloud sequentially and use keyboard commands to move between elements. This approach is inherently…

Table Linearization(also: Table Serialization)

Table linearization is the process of converting a two-dimensional HTML table into a one-dimensional sequence of text for non-visual presentation. When a screen reader linearizes a table, it reads the content cell by cell, row by row, from top-left to bottom-right, stripping…

Table Navigation Mode(also: Table Navigation)

A screen reader feature that allows users to navigate within data tables by moving a virtual cursor cell-by-cell in two dimensions — by row and by column — rather than reading content linearly. Introduced by Ogane and Asakawa in 1998 and subsequently adopted by virtually all…

Table navigation(also: Table browsing, Grid navigation)

A set of screen reader commands that allow users to move between cells, rows, and columns within HTML tables, hearing row and column headers announced for context at each position. Effective table navigation enables non-visual users to understand spatial relationships in…

Tag Order(also: Source Order, DOM Order, Reading Order)

The sequential order in which HTML elements appear in the source code of a web page, which determines the order in which screen readers and other assistive technologies present content to users. When web pages use CSS or layout tables to position content visually, the tag order…

TalkBack(also: Android TalkBack, Google TalkBack)

The built-in screen reader for Android devices, developed by Google as part of the Android Accessibility Suite. TalkBack provides spoken feedback, vibration, and other audible cues to help blind and visually impaired users navigate their devices without seeing the screen. Users…

Tree Navigation(also: Hierarchical Navigation, Tree View Navigation)

The process of moving through and exploring hierarchical data structures (trees) such as file systems, program structures, organizational charts, or menu systems. In accessible computing, tree navigation is a significant challenge because screen readers typically present tree…

Verbosity(also: Verbosity Level, Screen Reader Verbosity)

Verbosity refers to the level of detail that an assistive technology — particularly a screen reader or voice browser — provides when announcing interface elements and content. Most screen readers allow users to adjust verbosity settings to control how much contextual information…

Virtual Cursor(also: Browse Mode Cursor, Virtual PC Cursor)

A navigation mechanism used by screen readers that creates a linearized, text-based representation of a web page through which users can move sequentially. Unlike a visual cursor that points to a location on screen, the virtual cursor moves through the page's content structure —…

Visual Fragmentation(also: Visual Grouping, Visually Fragmented Grouping)

The design practice of organizing web page content into distinct visual groups using layout techniques such as background colors, tables, spacing, horizontal lines, and borders. Sighted users perceive these groupings at a glance and understand their roles (navigation, main…

WebAnywhere

A web-based, self-voicing screen reader developed at the University of Washington that enabled blind users to access the web from any computer with an Internet connection and sound output, without installing software. Launched in 2008, WebAnywhere ran entirely within a standard…

Window-Eyes

A commercial screen reader for Microsoft Windows developed by GW Micro that was one of the leading assistive technologies for blind computer users from the 1990s through the 2010s. Window-Eyes provided speech and braille output for navigating the Windows operating system and…

48 results.