Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
32 results found in Screen Reader.
- AI Content Describer (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…
- Anchor Text (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 informat…
- Audio Enriched Links (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 t…
- Aural Eavesdropping (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…
- Brute-Force Fallback (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 …
- Cell Navigation (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-…
- 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…
- Coping Strategies (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 exampl…
- Defluffing (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 t…
- Direct Speech Access (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…
- Emacspeak (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.…
- Emoji (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 ot…
- JAWS for Windows (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 oper…
- Link Context (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 — heading…
- Navigation Axis (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 blin…
- Navigation Order (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 se…
- Off-Screen Model (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 …
- PC-Talker (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…
- Page Fragmentation (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 lay…
- Picture Smart AI (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…