Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
134 results found in inclusive design.
- Multi-Sensory Design (Multisensory Experience, Multi-Sensory Accessibility)
- Multi-sensory design is an approach to creating experiences, environments, or products that engage multiple senses—touch, hearing, smell, taste, and sight—rather than relying predominantly on vision. …
- Multimodal Output (Multi-Modal Output, Cross-Modal Output)
- The simultaneous presentation of information through multiple sensory channels or formats, such as audio, visual, tactile, and text-to-speech, allowing users to choose the modality or combination of m…
- Multimodal workshop materials (Multi-sensory workshop materials)
- Physical materials designed for workshops or educational settings that convey the same content through multiple sensory channels — such as combining visual (large print, high contrast), tactile (brail…
- Multiple Impairments (Multiple Disabilities, Complex Disabilities, Co-occurring Impairments)
- The presence of two or more concurrent impairments — such as sensory, cognitive, physical, or neurological — in a single individual that together create complex accessibility needs not adequately addr…
- Multisensory Experience (Multi-Sensory Experience, Multisensory Design)
- An experience designed to engage multiple senses simultaneously, including touch, hearing, smell, taste, and proprioception, rather than relying primarily on vision. In accessibility contexts, multise…
- Musical Accessibility (Music Accessibility)
- The design and practice of making music creation, performance, learning, and appreciation available to people with disabilities. Musical accessibility spans multiple research communities including Hum…
- Negotiated Agency
- A dynamic model of creative control in collaborative content creation where individuals with disabilities fluidly shift between the roles of director, collaborator, and editor in response to the task …
- Neuronormative (Neuronormativity)
- The assumption that neurotypical cognitive patterns — such as sustained linear attention, consistent daily productivity, conventional social communication, and predictable emotional regulation — repre…
- Nothing About Us Without Us (NAUWU, Nihil de nobis sine nobis)
- A foundational principle of the disability rights movement asserting that people with disabilities must be meaningfully involved in decisions, policies, research, and design processes that affect thei…
- 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…
- Older Adults (Seniors, Elderly, Aging Population, Senior Citizens)
- People typically aged 65 and above who may experience age-related changes in vision, hearing, motor control, and cognition that affect how they interact with technology. Designing for older adults req…
- Participant-led research (User-led research)
- A research methodology in which participants — particularly those from marginalized or underrepresented groups — take an active role in directing the research process, shaping study protocols, and det…
- Participatory Action Research (PAR, Action Research)
- A collaborative research methodology that involves participants as co-researchers in identifying problems, designing solutions, and implementing changes. In accessibility research, PAR ensures people …
- Participatory Design (PD, Co-Design Process)
- A design approach originating in Scandinavian workplace democracy that involves end users as active, equal partners in the design process, not merely as research subjects or consultants. In accessibil…
- Persona (User Persona, Design Persona)
- A fictional character created to represent a type of user who might interact with a product, service, or website. Personas are grounded in research data and typically include details such as name, age…
- Persona (User Persona, Design Persona)
- A fictional but research-based representation of a user group that captures key characteristics, goals, motivations, and needs. In accessibility work, personas are used to represent the diverse experi…
- Personalized Learning (Adaptive Learning, Individualized Instruction, Differentiated Instruction)
- Personalized learning is an educational approach that tailors content, pace, and delivery method to each learner's individual needs, preferences, and abilities. In accessibility contexts, personalizat…
- Personalized accessibility (Customizable accessibility, Adaptive accessibility)
- An approach to accessibility that allows users to configure assistive features according to their individual needs, preferences, and abilities rather than providing a single fixed accommodation. Perso…
- Player balancing (Dynamic difficulty adjustment, Skill balancing)
- A game design technique that provides in-game advantages to lower-performing players, reducing performance disparities between competitors of different ability levels. In the context of accessibility,…
- Prior Knowledge (Background Knowledge, Existing Knowledge)
- Information and experience a user brings to a technology interaction before it begins, including technical knowledge of how devices work, functional knowledge of task goals, strategic knowledge of pro…