Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
29 results found in accessibility barriers.
- Ability Assumptions (Ability-Based Assumptions, Normative Assumptions)
- Ability assumptions are the implicit expectations that technology designers build into systems about users' physical, sensory, and cognitive capabilities. These assumptions — about how fast someone mo…
- Ability requirement (Ability demand, Interaction prerequisite)
- A capability that a person must possess in order to use a technology system, created implicitly by the system's design. AI systems generate new ability requirements: voice assistants require recogniza…
- Access Differential (Accessibility Gap, Access Gap)
- Access differential is the gap between the access that nondisabled people experience and the access that people with disabilities experience when using the same technologies, services, or environments…
- Administrative Burden (Bureaucratic Burden, Process Burden)
- The cumulative effort, time, stress, and negative impacts that result from navigating administrative processes such as applying for benefits, gaining medical evidence, completing forms, and interactin…
- Age-Related Impairment (Age-Related Decline, Aging-Related Disability)
- Functional limitations that commonly develop with advancing age, often involving multiple interacting mild impairments rather than a single major disability. Age-related impairments may affect vision …
- Anonymization (Anonymity, Anonymous Communication)
- The process of concealing a person's identity when they create or share content, enabling participation in discussions about sensitive, personal, or controversial topics without fear of identification…
- Artboard (Canvas, Slide Canvas, 2-D Canvas)
- An artboard is a two-dimensional digital workspace used in presentation software (PowerPoint, Google Slides, Keynote), graphic design tools, and whiteboard applications where objects like text boxes, …
- Aural Interface (Voice Interface, Voice-Controlled Interface, Voice User Interface)
- An aural interface is a user interface that relies primarily on spoken language for both input (voice commands) and output (spoken responses). Examples include Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, and Google Ass…
- CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart)
- A challenge-response test used on websites to determine whether a user is human, typically requiring users to identify distorted text, select images, or solve puzzles. CAPTCHAs present significant acc…
- Capacitive Touchscreen (Capacitive Touch Display, Cap Touch)
- A capacitive touchscreen is a type of display that detects touch input by sensing changes in the electrical field caused by the conductivity of a human finger or conductive stylus. Unlike resistive to…
- Cybersickness (VR Sickness, Simulator Sickness, Virtual Reality Motion Sickness)
- A form of motion sickness experienced during virtual reality use, characterized by symptoms including nausea, disorientation, dizziness, eye strain, and general discomfort. Cybersickness occurs due to…
- Disabling Factor (Disabling Condition, Situational Barrier)
- An external condition that blocks or hinders an otherwise available ability from being used to complete a task. Disabling factors can arise from technology design (such as ability assumptions embedded…
- Fitness Tracker (Activity Tracker, Wearable Fitness Device)
- A wearable electronic device that monitors and records physical activity metrics such as steps taken, distance covered, calories burned, and heart rate. Most commercial fitness trackers use step-count…
- HTML Canvas (Canvas API, Canvas Element)
- An HTML element used to draw graphics on a web page via JavaScript, rendering content as a bitmap image rather than as structured DOM elements. Unlike SVG, canvas content is not inherently accessible …
- Inequitable Access (Inadequate Accommodation)
- Inequitable access describes the situation where accommodations or accessibility measures are provided but fail to adequately address the underlying inaccessibility, leaving people with disabilities w…
- Information asymmetry (Information gap, Information lag)
- In accessibility contexts, the unequal access to timely, relevant information experienced by disabled people compared to non-disabled peers, caused by inaccessible formats, platforms, and communicatio…
- Infrastructural precarity (Digital infrastructure barriers)
- The condition of unreliable, inconsistent, or inadequate technological infrastructure that shapes and constrains how people — particularly disabled people and those in the Global South — can access an…
- Invisible Cost of Disability (Hidden Cost of Disability, Disability Tax, Crip Tax)
- The additional time, energy, money, and cognitive effort that people with disabilities must expend to accomplish tasks that non-disabled people can complete without such overhead. In workplace context…
- Micromobility (Shared Micromobility, Micro-Mobility)
- Micromobility refers to small-scale, lightweight, networked transportation vehicles used to travel short distances, typically weighing under 500 kg and traveling at low to moderate speeds. Examples in…
- Ocularcentrism (Visual Bias, Vision-Centrism)
- The privileging of visual perception and visual ways of knowing in the design of technologies, interfaces, and information systems. Ocularcentrism in technology design manifests when visual assumption…