Glossary

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

154 results found in interaction design.

Error correction strategy (Text correction, Input error recovery)
The methods and behaviours users employ to detect and fix errors during text input, including backspace deletion, cursor repositioning, autocorrect, and retyping. For blind and visually impaired users…
Explore by Touch (Touch Exploration)
A screen reader interaction mode on touchscreen devices in which users drag their finger across the screen to discover and hear descriptions of interface elements beneath their fingertip. When Explore…
Eyes-Free Interaction (Eyes-Free Computing)
Interaction with digital devices and interfaces without requiring visual attention to a screen. Eyes-free interaction is essential for blind users but also benefits sighted users in contexts where loo…
Eyes-free interaction (Eyes-free interface, Non-visual interaction)
An interaction paradigm in which users operate technology without relying on visual feedback, instead receiving information through auditory, haptic, or other non-visual channels. Eyes-free interfaces…
Feedforward (Anticipatory Feedback)
Design information that tells users what to expect before they take an action, guiding them toward intended functionality by communicating expected results. Unlike feedback (which confirms what happen…
Finger Reading (Touch Scanning, Tactile Scanning)
A touch interaction technique used on accessible touchscreen interfaces where users continuously pan or slide their finger across the screen to explore content, receiving feedback for every position t…
Fitts' Law (Fitts Law)
A predictive model of human movement in human-computer interaction that states the time required to move to a target area is a function of the distance to the target and the size of the target. Specif…
Fluid Traversal (Fluid Navigation)
A navigation design principle for screen reader interfaces that aims to mirror the flexibility of sighted visual attention. Fluid traversal has two key properties: it should be concise (requiring mini…
Foot-Based Interaction (Foot Input, Foot Gesture Interaction)
An interaction technique that uses foot movements and gestures as input for controlling digital devices. Foot-based interaction is particularly relevant for people with upper body motor impairments wh…
Free-Roam Locomotion (Room-Scale VR, Physical Locomotion)
A VR locomotion method where the user's real-world physical movement is directly mapped to movement in the virtual environment—walking forward in the real room moves the user forward in VR. While free…
Frequency mapping (Pitch mapping, Frequency-position mapping)
A sonification technique that encodes spatial position or data values as changes in audio frequency (pitch), creating an intuitive correspondence between vertical position and pitch height — low posit…
Gestural Interface (Gesture-Based Interface, Gestural Controller)
An input device or system that interprets body movements, hand gestures, or physical expressions as control signals for digital systems. In accessibility and music contexts, gestural interfaces are pa…
Gesture Elicitation (User-Defined Gestures)
Gesture elicitation is a participatory design method where end users are asked to invent gestures for a set of device functions, rather than having gestures predetermined by designers or engineers. Pa…
Gesture Elicitation Study (Gesture Elicitation, User-Defined Gestures)
A research methodology in which participants are presented with the effects or outcomes of actions (called referents) and asked to propose gestures they would naturally perform to trigger those effect…
Gesture Input (Gesture Recognition, Gesture-Based Interaction)
An input method that uses physical movements of the body — typically hands, fingers, arms, or head — to interact with digital systems. Gesture input includes touchscreen gestures (swipes, taps, pinche…
Gesture Input (Gestural Input, Gesture-Based Input)
A form of human-computer interaction where users perform physical movements—such as swipes, taps, pinches, or mid-air hand motions—to issue commands or provide input to a digital device. Gesture input…
Gesture Set Design (Gesture Vocabulary Design)
The process of selecting and defining a collection of gestures that users will perform to interact with a system, including decisions about which physical movements map to which functions. Effective g…
Gesture vocabulary (Gesture set, Interaction gesture repertoire)
The complete set of touch gestures recognized and used by a device or application, including single-stroke gestures (swipes, flicks), multistroke gestures (multi-tap, draw-then-tap), and multitouch ge…
Gesture-Based Interface (Gestural Interface, Gesture Recognition Interface)
An interaction system that interprets human gestures—such as hand movements, body poses, or finger motions—as input commands. Gesture-based interfaces can use cameras, accelerometers, touch surfaces, …
Gesture-based interaction (Gestural interface, Touchless interaction)
An interaction modality where users control technology through body movements, hand gestures, or postures detected by sensors such as depth cameras, rather than through traditional input devices like …