Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
72 results found in media accessibility.
- Livestream Accessibility (Live Video Accessibility)
- The practice of making live video broadcasts accessible to people with disabilities, particularly viewers with visual or hearing impairments. Livestreams present unique accessibility challenges becaus…
- Media Accessibility (Accessible Media)
- The practice of ensuring that media content — including images, videos, audio, GIFs, memes, and other multimedia formats — is perceivable and understandable by people with diverse abilities. Media acc…
- Narrative Immersion (Story Immersion, Narrative Presence)
- A psychological state in which the audience becomes deeply absorbed in a story world, perceiving the mediated content as if it were an unmediated reality. In accessible media, narrative immersion enco…
- 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 …
- News Snacking (News Grazing)
- A pattern of news consumption characterized by short, dispersed bursts of engagement rather than sustained reading sessions. News snacking typically involves quickly scanning headlines or listening to…
- Non-Speech Captions (Non-Speech Sound Captions, Non-Dialogue Captions)
- Textual descriptions of non-speech audio elements in media content, including environmental sounds, music, and sound effects, displayed as part of closed or open captions. Non-speech captions are esse…
- Non-Speech Information (NSI, Non-Dialogue Audio Information)
- Any audio content in media that is not spoken dialogue, including environmental sounds, music, sound effects, and ambient noise. Non-speech information plays a critical role in storytelling by conveyi…
- Non-Speech Sounds (Non-Speech Audio, Sound Effects)
- Auditory content in media that is not spoken dialogue, including music, environmental noises, sound effects, laughter, applause, and other ambient sounds. Non-speech sounds carry important narrative, …
- Onomatopoeia
- Words that phonetically imitate or suggest the sound they describe, such as "buzz," "crash," "swoosh," or "sizzle." In captioning, onomatopoeia is one approach to representing non-speech sounds, offer…
- Open Captioning (Open Captions, Burned-In Captions)
- Captions that are permanently embedded into the video image and cannot be turned off by the viewer. Unlike closed captions, open captions are part of the visual content itself, making them visible to …
- Open Captions (Burned-in Captions, Hard-coded Captions)
- Captions that are permanently embedded into a video and cannot be turned off by the viewer. Unlike closed captions, which can be toggled on or off, open captions are always visible as part of the vide…
- Panel Transition Cue (Scene Transition Cue, Panel Change Signal)
- An auditory signal used in audio-described comics and webtoons to indicate that the narrative has moved to a new panel, scene, or page. Panel transition cues help visually impaired listeners maintain …
- Parallel Viewing (Dual-Screen Viewing)
- A media consumption strategy in which viewers use a second screen alongside the primary display to access supplementary information, accessibility features, or alternative content representations with…
- Picture-in-Picture (PiP, PIP)
- A display technique that shows a smaller video or content window overlaid on the main content, allowing viewers to see two sources simultaneously. In accessibility contexts, picture-in-picture is the …
- Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP)
- A text display method in which words or short phrases are shown one at a time in a fixed location on screen in quick succession, eliminating the need for eye movements (saccades) between words. RSVP w…
- Respeaking (Speech-to-Speech Captioning, Voice Writing)
- A real-time captioning method in which a trained operator listens to speech and repeats it clearly into a speech recognition system optimized for their voice, producing captions. Respeaking is commonl…
- Scene Description (SD, Visual Description)
- A textual description of the visual elements in a video scene — including objects, people, settings, actions, and visual cues — that can be converted into audio through text-to-speech technology. Scen…
- Sign Language Interpretation (Sign Language Interpreting, SLI)
- The process of conveying spoken or written language into a sign language (or vice versa) by a trained interpreter, enabling communication access for Deaf and hard of hearing individuals. In digital me…
- Signer Box (Signing Space, Sign Space)
- The three-dimensional space in front of a sign language user within which signs are produced, typically extending from the waist to just above the head and about an arm's width to either side. The sig…
- Signer Placement (Interpreter Placement)
- The spatial positioning of a sign language interpreter or signing instructor relative to instructional content in a video, videoconference, or immersive environment. Common arrangements include a side…