Glossary

Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.

30 results found in accessibility testing.

Acceptance Testing (User Acceptance Testing, UAT, Acceptance Tests)
A form of software testing that validates whether a system meets its specified requirements from the end user's perspective. In accessibility, acceptance tests simulate real user interaction scenarios…
Accessibility Crawler (automated accessibility crawler, app crawler for accessibility)
An automated tool that systematically explores an application's user interface—by simulating taps, swipes, and navigation—to discover screens and UI components and then evaluate each against accessibi…
Accessibility Evaluation (Accessibility Audit, Accessibility Assessment, Accessibility Review)
The process of assessing whether a digital product, website, or application meets accessibility standards and is usable by people with disabilities. Accessibility evaluation typically combines automat…
Accessibility Linter (A11y Linter, Accessibility Lint)
A static analysis tool that scans source code — typically HTML, CSS, and related web technologies — for accessibility violations against standards such as WCAG. Accessibility linters can be integrated…
Accessibility Metric (Web Accessibility Metric, Accessibility Score)
A quantitative measure used to assess and compare the accessibility quality of web pages or websites. Accessibility metrics typically calculate a score (often 0-100%) based on the number and severity …
Accessibility Monitoring (Web Accessibility Monitoring, Accessibility Observatory)
Accessibility monitoring is the ongoing process of tracking and measuring the accessibility level of websites or digital products over time. Because web content is frequently updated, changes can inad…
Accessibility overlay (Accessibility widget, Accessibility plugin, Overlay tool)
A software layer, typically implemented as a JavaScript widget or browser extension, that applies modifications to a website's presentation or behavior with the goal of improving accessibility. Overla…
Automated Accessibility Testing (Automated Testing, Accessibility Scanning, A11y Testing)
The use of software tools to programmatically check web content against accessibility guidelines such as WCAG, identifying issues like missing alternative text, insufficient color contrast, empty link…
Automated Evaluation Tool (AET, Automated Testing Tool, Accessibility Checker)
Software that automatically scans websites, applications, or documents to detect accessibility violations against standards such as WCAG or Section 508. Common examples include WAVE, axe, AChecker, an…
Barrier Walkthrough (Structured Walkthrough)
A systematic accessibility evaluation method that guides evaluators through the process of identifying barriers that people with disabilities may encounter on a website. Unlike a standard conformance …
Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD, Behavior-Driven Development)
A software development methodology that extends Test-Driven Development by writing test cases as human-readable scenarios in natural language, describing expected system behaviour from the user's pers…
Bobby (Bobby Worldwide, Watchfire Bobby)
Bobby was one of the earliest and most widely used automated web accessibility testing tools, developed by the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) and later acquired by Watchfire (subsequentl…
Character Error Rate (CER)
A metric for evaluating automatic speech recognition (ASR) and optical character recognition (OCR) accuracy, measuring the minimum number of character-level edits (insertions, deletions, substitutions…
Chartability (Chartability Heuristics)
A set of heuristics for assessing the accessibility of data visualizations, developed by Frank Elavsky and the Dataviz Accessibility group. Chartability provides a systematic framework for evaluating …
Conformance Evaluation (Conformance Assessment, Accessibility Conformance Testing)
The process of systematically assessing whether a website, application, or digital product meets the requirements of a specific accessibility standard, typically WCAG at a designated conformance level…
Conformance Testing (Compliance Testing, Guideline Review)
An accessibility evaluation method that checks whether a website or digital product meets the requirements specified by accessibility guidelines or standards such as WCAG. Conformance testing can be p…
EARL (Evaluation and Report Language)
A machine-readable format developed by the W3C for expressing the results of accessibility evaluations in a standardized way. EARL uses RDF (Resource Description Framework) to describe test results in…
Evaluator Effect
The phenomenon in accessibility and usability evaluation where different evaluators examining the same interface detect different sets of problems and may reach different conclusions about the same is…
Failure Mode (Accessibility failure mode)
In accessibility evaluation, any hindrance caused by a product or web site that prevents a user with a disability from achieving a goal with the same effectiveness, efficiency or safety as a non-disab…
Heuristic Evaluation (Expert Review, Heuristic Review)
An accessibility or usability evaluation method in which evaluators examine an interface against a set of recognised principles (heuristics) to identify potential problems. In web accessibility, heuri…