Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
154 results found in interaction design.
- Ability-based calibration (Adaptive calibration, Movement range calibration)
- The process of adjusting a technology system's input sensitivity and thresholds to match an individual user's physical capabilities and range of motion, rather than assuming a normative body. In motio…
- Accessible Gesture Interaction (Inclusive Gesture Design)
- The design and implementation of gesture-based interactions that can be effectively used by people with diverse abilities, including those with motor impairments, visual disabilities, or conditions su…
- Ad-Hoc Customization (On-the-Fly Customization, Real-Time Adjustment)
- Making customization changes during content consumption rather than configuring all settings beforehand. For ADHD video viewers, ad-hoc customization was preferred by 75% of participants because it al…
- Asymmetric Gameplay (Asymmetric Game Design, Asymmetric Multiplayer)
- A game design approach where different players have different roles, abilities, information, or challenges within the same game. In the context of accessibility, asymmetric gameplay is a promising str…
- Attention Management (Attention Design)
- Design strategies and techniques that help users direct, maintain, and recover attention while interacting with digital content. For users with ADHD, attention management in interface design includes …
- Audio Icon (Auditory Icon, Earcon)
- A non-speech sound used in a user interface to represent an object, action, or event, analogous to how visual icons represent concepts graphically. Audio icons use everyday sounds that have a natural …
- Audio-Haptic Feedback Layering (Multimodal Feedback Layering)
- A design technique for managing multiple concurrent non-visual feedback signals by strategically prioritizing, staggering, and adjusting audio and haptic cues to prevent sensory overload. Techniques i…
- Audio-Spatial Mapping (Auditory-Spatial Mapping, Sound Spatialization)
- A technique that uses sound properties such as pitch, volume, panning, and spatialization to represent spatial information non-visually. In accessibility contexts, audio-spatial mapping helps blind an…
- Auditory Feedback (Audio Feedback, Auditory Display)
- The use of sound — including tones, sound effects, earcons, and speech — to convey information about system states, user actions, or environmental changes. In accessibility, auditory feedback serves a…
- Auditory Icon (Audio Icon)
- A non-speech sound used in a user interface that represents an object, action, or event by mimicking its real-world sound — for example, the sound of crumpling paper to indicate deleting a file, or a …
- Body-Centric Design
- Design approaches in technology that center on the user's physical body as the primary means of interaction, such as VR systems that rely on body tracking, gestures, and physical movement. While body-…
- Brushing and Linking (Brush and Link, Linked Highlighting)
- An interactive visualization technique where selecting or highlighting data in one chart automatically highlights the corresponding data in other linked charts within a dashboard. For example, clickin…
- Chairable computing (Chairable input, Wheelchair-integrated computing)
- A design paradigm in which input devices and computing interfaces are integrated into the form factor of a wheelchair — particularly armrests, trays, and frames — analogous to how wearable computing f…
- Click-on-Lift (Lift-off Activation, Release Activation)
- An interaction technique where a touch target is activated only when the user lifts their finger from the screen while still within the target area, rather than registering the action at the point of …
- Cocktail party effect (Selective auditory attention)
- The well-documented human ability to focus auditory attention on a single speech source among multiple simultaneous conversations, while still detecting relevant information (such as one's name) in un…
- Concurrent speech interface (Simultaneous speech, Parallel audio streams)
- An interaction paradigm that presents multiple speech audio streams simultaneously, spatially separated using techniques like head-related transfer functions, to enable users to scan or monitor severa…
- Confirmation Dialogue (Confirmation Dialog, Verification Prompt)
- An interaction pattern where a system summarizes a proposed action and asks the user to confirm before executing it. In accessible calendar design and voice assistant interactions, confirmation dialog…
- Context Retention (Conversational Context, Context Awareness)
- The ability of a voice assistant or AI system to maintain awareness of previous interactions and use that information to interpret subsequent commands correctly. In calendar accessibility, context ret…
- Conversational Interface (Conversational UI, Voice User Interface, VUI)
- A user interface that enables interaction through natural language, either spoken or typed, allowing users to communicate with a system using conversational dialogue rather than traditional graphical …
- Conversational User Interface (CUI, Conversational Interface, Dialogue Interface, CVUI)
- A user interface that enables interaction through natural language conversation, either via voice (spoken dialogue) or text (chat). Conversational user interfaces encompass voice assistants, chatbots,…