Accessibility Glossary Flashcards
a11y
short for ‘‘accessibility’’ (there are 11 letters between ‘‘a’’ and ‘‘y’’)
ACAA
Air Carrier Access Act
accessibility
the extent to which a product is functionally usable by people with disabilities
activate
perform the default action on a specific element without regard to the specific method such as with a mouse, keyboard, by voice, etc.
active element
the element which currently has focus
ADA
Americans with Disabilities Act
alt text
text associated with an image that communicates the equivalent purpose of the image
alternative flow
a secondary path a user might take to perform a task in a use case
ARIA
Accessible Rich Internet Application – additional states and properties added to page content and widgets that provide new or enhanced semantic meaning to elements
assistive technology
tools used to increase, maintain, or allow access to something that would otherwise be difficult or impossible for a person with a disability to access
attribute
a named property of an element generally with a value
audio description
a track that describes what is happening in a video (beyond dialogue)
audit
a review of your system to determine overall compliance
automatic testing
tests which can be run by a computer with no human help
best practices
documents describing accessibility issues and the best way to solve them
blind
having no usable level of visual perception
captions
on-screen text that is synchronized with dialogue, identifies the speaker, and other sounds (e.g., music, creaking door)
cognitive disability
a range of disabilities that may cause difficulty understanding or performing certain tasks
colorblind
an inability to distinguish between certain colors
complaint
a formal filing in a court of law that initiates a lawsuit
compliance
adhering to the laws and/or standards
conformance
adhering to the laws and/or standards
contrast / contrast ratio
a ratio indicating the visibility between the lightness of two colors, such as a text and background
crawler
a process which catalogs all the reachable pages on a website (aka “spider”)
CVAA
21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act
deaf
having no usable perception of sound
demand letter
a letter stating a legal claim, often sent before a formal complaint is filed, as an attempt to settle out of court
development lifecycle
the process of developing a system: planning, creating, testing, deploying, maintaining
DOM
Document Object Model – the internal hierarchical construct of the content and containers in a web page generated and maintained by a web browser
Dragon
a commercial voice-to-text application, supporting both text input and voice control of software and websites
EIT
Electronic & Information Technology
element
a single node in the DOM tree
enter or input
type something into the form field
exception
a branch of a use case that tests what happens when the user makes an error
focus
a control or piece of content that is the current point of interest, that can be read by a screen reader, clicked by a mouse, or manipulated by keyboard
functionally accessible
when a use case does not conform 100% to accessibility standards but a user is still able to complete the task
gain focus on
keyboard focus moves to a specific element
groundwork
identifying and capturing a specific set of modules and use cases which give a representative sample of the system
guided automatic test
automatic tests which need verification by a person
hard of hearing
having limited audio perception
ICT
Information and Communications Technology
intellectual disability
see cognitive disability
ITI
Information Technology Industry (Council)
JAWS
a commercial screen reader for Windows primarily used by people who are blind or visually impaired
label
text or image with alt text that is presented to the user to identify and describe what goes in a particular field (e.g., “Date of Birth”) or what a check box or radio button relates to (e.g., “Yes” or “18-35 years old”)
learning disability
see cognitive disability
legally blind
20/200 or less vision or less than a 20-degree field of vision in the best corrected eye
limited mobility
having limited control of the physical body or pain when moving
locate
browse through the system to find a certain element
low vision
having limited visual perception
manual testing
tests which require a human to run them
module
a group of related content and/or controls (e.g., navigation bar or full web page)
navigate
move to a particular page or a particular location on the page
noticeability
likelihood that a given violation will be detected by users of a system
NVDA
a free screen reader for Windows
occurrence [rate]
measure of how often a particular violation happens within a module
OCR
Office for Civil Rights (generally at an organization, department, or agency level)
OCR
optical character recognition – technology which attempts to convert an image of text into usable text characters that can be read by a screen reader
operable
when a user can operate a user interface or component to perform an interaction
overlay
JavaScript that remediates accessibility issues on page load. A quick way to achieve compliance while working on code-level changes over time.
perceivable
content and controls must be presented in a way that is not invisible to all of a person’s senses
QA
Quality Assurance – the process of reviewing and testing a product or new feature before releasing it to the public
refreshable braille display
a device often controlled by a screen reader that translates on-screen or electronic text into refreshable Braille generally using actuators to control physical Braille cells
regression testing
testing that a remediation has been successful and has not introduced new bugs
remediation
fixing issues discovered by testing
responsive (web design)
content adapts automatically based on the size of the display (computer, tablet, phone)
retrofitting
implementing fixes in an existing system
robust
content must remain usable as technologies advance
role
an indicator of type (e.g., button, checkbox)
screen magnifier
software that enlarges the content and provides visual cues to navigate
screen reader
software that reads screen content out loud, often drives a refreshable Braille display, and allows navigation by keyboard
SDLC
Software Development Lifecycle – see “development lifecycle”
Section 1557
part of the Affordable Care Act which relates to digital accessibility
Section 255
part of the Communications Act which relates to telecommunications accessibility
Section 508
part of the Rehabilitation Act which requires use, maintenance, development, and procurement of accessible ICT by the US federal government
severity
measure of how large an impact on the user experience a best practice violation will have
sip and puff
a device that allows someone with very limited mobility to operate technology via air pressure from their mouth
speech impairment
a range of disabilities ranging from no speech to difficulty speaking clearly
spider
a process which catalogs all the reachable pages on a website (aka “crawler”)
structure
hierarchy of content, usually created with headings and subheadings
success criteria
specific technical standards for a particular element of your website/app/product
support statement
document outlining your product’s support of the WCAG success criteria
switch access / control
buttons with large targets that allow a person with limited mobility to operate a device
tagging
process by which a PDF is made accessible to screen readers by providing semantic information and structural hierarchy to the content of the PDF
TalkBack
a free screen reader for Android devices
text-to-speech
the process of converting computer text to audible speech
tractability
estimated costs of fixing violations in accordance with best practices
transcription
a document that contains the same dialogue including indication of speakers and other information as a video or audio clip
UAT
User Acceptance Testing – testing performed by a client on a supplier’s product or content before the client accepts that product or content
understandable
the information and operation must be easily comprehensible
use case
a task a user can do in your system (e.g., create new account)
User Agent
a browser or similar piece of technology which converts web page content from technical languages (e.g., HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) to a format with which a user can interact (usually a visual webpage)
User Agent String
an identifier sent by a browser with each request that includes basic information like browser name, version, and operating system
validation testing
testing that a remediation has been successful and has not introduced new bugs
visual indication of keyboard focus
a box shown on the display that contains the currently focused content or control
voice-to-text
the process of converting a user’s speech into navigation or typed words
VoiceOver
a free screen reader included on MacOS and iOS devices
VPAT
Voluntary Product Accessibility Template – accessibility support statement required for selling into the federal government
W3C
World Wide Web Consortium – sets the standards used to make web technologies interoperable
WCAG
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines – lay out the minimum requirements to make content and controls accessible
ZoomText
a commercial application that allows users to magnify content on their screen and/or change foreground and background colors to achieve more contrast
