Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
47 results found in mobile accessibility.
- Accessibility API (Accessibility Application Programming Interface, A11y API)
- A set of programming interfaces provided by operating systems that allow assistive technologies and accessibility services to interact with application user interfaces. Accessibility APIs expose infor…
- 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 Feature Discovery (Feature Discoverability, Accessibility Awareness)
- The process by which users learn about, find, and activate accessibility features available on their devices or in software. Research shows that the vast majority of users — particularly older adults …
- AssistiveTouch
- An iOS accessibility feature that provides an on-screen menu of customizable touch-based shortcuts, allowing users to perform gestures and actions that might otherwise require physical buttons or comp…
- Braille Input (Braille Keyboard Input, Braille Screen Input)
- A text entry method that allows users to type characters using Braille code on a device, rather than a standard QWERTY keyboard. On touchscreen devices, Braille input typically maps finger taps or ges…
- Camera Aiming (Camera Pointing, Camera Guidance)
- The challenge blind users face in correctly positioning and aiming a camera to capture the intended visual content. Since blind users cannot see the camera viewfinder, they may inadvertently capture t…
- 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 …
- Continuous Motion Input (Gesture Typing, Swipe Input)
- A text entry method where the user traces a continuous path across an on-screen keyboard, passing through the desired letters or keys without lifting their finger. This approach can be faster than dis…
- Default Delivery Context (DDC)
- A baseline set of device capabilities defined by the W3C Mobile Web Best Practices specification, used as a reference point for evaluating mobile web content. The Default Delivery Context specifies mi…
- Device Switching (Device Transition, Cross-Device Interaction)
- The process of moving between different computing devices to complete tasks, such as switching from a smartphone to a laptop or tablet. For people with motor impairments, particularly wheelchair users…
- Digital Financial Inclusion (Financial Technology Accessibility, Inclusive Fintech)
- Ensuring that digital financial services — including mobile banking, mobile money (like M-Pesa), online payments, and digital wallets — are accessible to and usable by people with disabilities. Digita…
- Disambiguation (Target Disambiguation, Touch Disambiguation)
- In accessible interface design, disambiguation is the process of resolving ambiguity when a user's input could correspond to more than one interactive target. This commonly occurs on touchscreens wher…
- Enhanced Area Touch (Area Touch, Expanded Touch Area)
- A touchscreen interaction technique that enlarges the effective touch point from a single pixel to a larger circular area, expanding both the motor space (the physical area the user needs to target) a…
- 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…
- Fat Finger Problem (Fat Finger Effect, Finger Occlusion)
- A fundamental challenge in touchscreen interaction where the user's finger is larger than the target being selected, causing difficulty in precise target acquisition. The finger both occludes (blocks …
- Gesture sonification (Touch sonification, Gesture-to-sound mapping)
- The technique of converting touchscreen finger movements into real-time audio representations by mapping spatial position to sound parameters — typically pitch for vertical position and stereo panning…
- 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…
- Imaginary Interface (Spatial Memory Interface, Empty-Handed Interaction)
- An interaction paradigm where users interact with a virtual interface mapped to empty space or their own body, without any physical device in the interaction area. Users transfer their spatial memory …
- Live Captions (Google Live Caption, Automatic Captions)
- An Android accessibility feature that automatically generates real-time captions for any audio playing on the device, including videos, podcasts, phone calls, and video meetings. Unlike Live Transcrib…