Glossary

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ASSETS(also: ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility)

The premier academic conference on accessible computing, organized by ACM SIGACCESS (Special Interest Group on Accessible Computing). ASSETS began as a research conference planned by SIGCAPH (the predecessor to SIGACCESS) in the early 1990s and has grown into the leading venue…

Academic Accessibility(also: Accessibility in academia, Scholarly accessibility)

The degree to which the tools, publications, venues, and institutional practices of academic research and higher education are usable by disabled students, faculty, and researchers. Academic accessibility spans scholarly PDFs and figures, reference and qualitative-analysis…

Accessibility Commons(also: AC Repository, AC Metadata Repository)

A shared metadata repository and schema proposed in 2008 by IBM, the University of Washington, Stony Brook University, and the University of Manchester to let accessibility-remediation research projects publish and reuse externally authored fixes for inaccessible web content. An…

Adaptive Hypermedia(also: AH, Adaptive Hypermedia Systems, AHS)

Interactive systems that build a model of each user's goals, knowledge, preferences, and context, then use this model to automatically adapt the content, presentation, and navigation of hypermedia documents. Unlike static web pages that present the same interface to all users,…

Allocative Harm(also: Allocational Harm)

A category of algorithmic harm in which an automated system disproportionately withholds opportunities, resources, or services from certain individuals or groups - often because those groups are underrepresented or atypically represented in training data. In accessibility,…

Appropriation

In HCI and accessibility research, the process by which users adapt, repurpose, or extend a technology beyond its designers' original intent to fit their own practices and contexts. Appropriation is often how disabled users bridge the gap between generic products and their…

Best-Worst Scaling(also: BWS, Maximum Difference Scaling, MaxDiff)

A survey methodology for efficiently collecting ranking judgments from participants over a large set of items. Instead of asking participants to rank all items at once (which becomes cognitively overwhelming beyond a handful of options), BWS presents small subsets (N-tuples,…

Bidirectional Learning

A principle in community-based and participatory design research in which knowledge flows in both directions between researchers/designers and community members, rather than researchers extracting data from participants. In accessibility contexts, bidirectional learning means…

Crip HCI

An orientation within human-computer interaction that brings crip theory and crip technoscience into the methods, design practices, and evaluation frameworks of computing research. Rather than asking how technology can accommodate disabled users within existing normative…

Crowdsourcing(also: Crowd-Sourced Data, Community Reporting)

A method of collecting data, information, or contributions from a large number of people, typically via the internet, rather than relying on a single authoritative source. In accessibility contexts, crowdsourcing is used to gather information about the accessibility of physical…

Decision Confidence

A reframing of accessibility as whether a user can judge product suitability, transaction risk, and information trustworthiness well enough to act independently — introduced by Ryskeldiev et al. (2026) in the context of blind and low-vision e-commerce. Where WCAG conformance…

Discriminative Ability(also: Discriminative ability of a metric, Discriminability)

In accessibility research methodology, the property of an evaluation metric to reveal statistically significant differences between stimuli that are known to differ along the dimension being measured. For example, a comprehension-question metric has discriminative ability for…

Experiential Transcoding

An approach to web page transcoding that restructures content based on actual user behaviour rather than relying solely on source code analysis or predefined heuristics. By analysing how sighted users interact with web pages — typically through eye-tracking data — experiential…

Global North(also: Developed Countries, First World)

A socioeconomic and political designation referring to countries that are typically wealthier, more economically developed, and generally located in the northern hemisphere — plus Australia and New Zealand. In accessibility research, the Global North dominates published…

Hackability

A methodology and design philosophy for encouraging DIY assistive technology development in which disabled people, allies, and professionals collaboratively hack, adapt, and remix existing objects into personalized assistive solutions. Hackability events bring together makers…

Haptic Field of View(also: Tactile Field of View, Haptic Aperture)

The limited area that can be perceived through touch at any given moment, analogous to the visual field of view but much more restricted. While vision allows perception of an entire scene simultaneously, touch typically provides information only from the area directly under the…

Human-Nature Interaction(also: HNI)

A research area within human-computer interaction concerned with how people perceive, access, and engage with natural environments, and how technology can mediate that relationship. HNI draws on environmental psychology, biophilia, and posthumanist design to study experiences…

ICCHP(also: International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs)

A biennial research conference on technology for people with disabilities, held in Europe since 1989. ICCHP provides a peer-reviewed academic venue for accessibility research with a strong European perspective, complementing the ASSETS conference. Topics span assistive…

Implementation Science

The study of methods and strategies that promote the systematic uptake of research findings and evidence-based practices into routine clinical, educational, or service settings. Implementation science addresses the well-documented research-to-practice gap: even rigorously…

In-Situ Deployment(also: In-Situ Study, Field Deployment Study)

A research methodology in which a functional prototype or product is installed on participants' own devices and used in their everyday environment over days, weeks, or months, rather than in a controlled laboratory session. In-situ deployments are especially valuable for…

IncluSet

A dataset surfacing repository created by researchers at the University of Maryland that catalogs and organizes accessibility datasets — datasets sourced from people with disabilities and older adults. IncluSet was developed to make it easier for AI researchers and practitioners…

Index of Difficulty(also: ID, Fitts ID)

The Index of Difficulty (ID) is the central quantity in Fitts' law that captures how hard a rapid aimed pointing movement is, computed as log₂(A/W + 1) in the Shannon formulation, where A is the amplitude (distance to the target) and W is the target width along the movement…

Information Foraging Theory(also: IFT)

A theory proposed by Pirolli and Card describing how people seek information by adaptively optimising for maximum information gain with minimum effort, analogous to animal foraging. Key constructs include information scent (cues signalling potential usefulness), information…

Infrastructuring for Access

A design approach introduced by Wang and Marie (CHI 2026) that combines HCI's infrastructuring theory with Disability Studies and Repair Studies. Rather than focusing on removing barriers or accommodating individual users, Infrastructuring for Access treats disabled…

Interaction with Disabled Persons Scale(also: IDP Scale, IDP)

A standardized 20-item attitudinal instrument developed by Gething and Wheeler (1992) and later validated by Forlin, Fogarty, and Caroll (1999), designed to measure both desirable and undesirable emotions that people experience when interacting with individuals who have…

Leadership of the Most Affected

A core principle of disability-justice organising that positions people most directly affected by a problem — those with the most at stake and the most lived expertise — as the leaders of work aimed at solving it, rather than as consultants, testers, or recipients of others'…

Literacy Bias(also: Literacy bias of a metric)

In accessibility research methodology, a literacy bias describes the phenomenon where an evaluation metric systematically produces different scores for participants with different reading-literacy levels, independent of the characteristic being measured. For example,…

Meta-Research(also: Research on research, Metascience)

The systematic study of research itself — the tools, workflows, norms, infrastructures, and institutional practices through which scholarly knowledge is produced, evaluated, and disseminated. Meta-research examines questions such as which methods and technologies researchers…

Metadata Repository(also: Metadata Store, Metadata Registry)

A server-side system that stores and serves descriptive data about other resources — in accessibility contexts, typically information about web pages or their elements that helps assistive technology render them more usably. A metadata repository lets multiple tools share the…

Mini-VLAT(also: Miniature VLAT)

A 12-item short-form version of the Visualization Literacy Assessment Test developed by Pandey and Ottley that preserves reliability while reducing participant burden. Each chart type from the original VLAT is represented by a single question, making it well-suited for…

Multi-Objective Optimization(also: Many-Objective Optimization, Pareto Optimization)

A computational approach to finding solutions that simultaneously satisfy multiple, potentially conflicting goals. Unlike single-objective optimization which seeks one best answer, multi-objective optimization produces a set of trade-off solutions where improving one objective…

Multimodal Natural Language Generation(also: Multimodal NLG)

Natural language generation systems that produce output coordinated across more than one modality — typically combinations of text or speech with graphics, maps, animation, gesture, or tactile output. Multimodal NLG systems decompose their output into several "channels" that are…

NIDILRR(also: NIDRR, National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research)

A U.S. federal agency within the Administration for Community Living that funds disability and rehabilitation research, including accessible technology development. Originally named NIDRR (National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research), it was renamed NIDILRR in…

Nature Engagement(also: Engagement with Nature)

The active, lived practice of spending time in and interacting with natural environments - walking in parks, gardening, listening to birdsong, touching plants, sitting by water, and similar embodied encounters. Nature engagement extends beyond physical presence to multisensory,…

Nature Relatedness(also: Nature Relatedness Scale, NRS, Nature Connectedness)

A psychological construct describing the strength of a person's affective, cognitive, and experiential connection to the natural world. It is most often measured with the 21-item Nature Relatedness Scale (NRS) developed by Nisbet, Zelenski, and Murphy, which yields three…

Online Focus Group(also: Virtual Focus Group, Remote Focus Group)

A qualitative research method in which a group of participants discusses a topic through an online platform rather than meeting in person. Online focus groups are particularly valuable for accessibility research because they remove physical barriers — such as transportation,…

PRISMA-ScR(also: PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews)

PRISMA-ScR is the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews - a 20-item checklist and flow diagram that standardises how scoping reviews are reported. It adapts the PRISMA framework (designed for systematic reviews) to the…

Part of Speech(also: POS, Word Class, POS Tag)

A grammatical category assigned to each word (or, in signed languages, each sign) in a sentence — such as noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, or conjunction. Automatic part-of-speech tagging is a foundational step in natural language processing pipelines. In…

Participant pool(also: User pool, Research panel, Participant registry)

A pre-established database of individuals who have expressed willingness to participate in research studies, maintained with demographic information, contact details, and often cognitive or ability assessments. In accessibility research, dedicated participant pools address the…

Perceptual Integration(also: Perceptual Binding)

The process by which the brain combines information arriving through different sensory channels — vision, hearing, touch, proprioception — into a single coherent percept of an object or event. Perceptual integration depends on temporal synchrony (cues arriving within roughly 100…

Pronominal Reference(also: Pronoun Reference, Anaphoric Reference)

The use of pronouns or pronoun-like expressions to refer back to entities previously introduced in a discourse. In spoken and written languages this is typically achieved with words such as "he," "she," "it," or "they"; in American Sign Language and other signed languages,…

Pseudo-participation(also: Pseudo-participation by Design)

A term coined by Palacin et al. (2020) to describe forms of user involvement in design that appear participatory on the surface but grant participants limited power to shape outcomes. In accessibility and AI contexts, pseudo-participation occurs when disabled people are invited…

Psycholinguistics

The scientific study of the cognitive and neural processes that underlie the production, comprehension, and acquisition of language. Psycholinguistic research measures phenomena such as reading and signing rate, comprehension under time pressure, lexical access, and the role of…

Qualitative Data Analysis(also: QDA, Qualitative Analysis)

A research methodology for systematically examining non-numerical data such as interview transcripts, field notes, audio recordings, images, and videos to identify patterns, themes, and meanings. The process typically involves coding data segments, categorizing codes into…

Quality of Perception(also: QoP)

An evaluation framework from the multimedia-accessibility research literature for measuring how well a user can understand and use a media presentation, combining objective comprehension metrics (e.g., fact-recall or multiple-choice quiz accuracy) with subjective judgements…

Reflexivity(also: Researcher Reflexivity)

A research practice in which scholars continuously examine how their own identities, positions, assumptions, disciplinary training, and power relationships shape the research they conduct — the questions they ask, the methods they choose, the participants they recruit, and the…

Scanpath Trend Analysis(also: STA)

A method for analysing multiple eye-tracking scanpaths to identify a single representative trending path that captures the most common viewing patterns across a group of users. STA determines which visual elements of a web page are most frequently visited and in what order,…

Sense of Control(also: Perceived control, Locus of control (task-level))

A psychological construct describing a user's subjective feeling of agency over what a system does, distinct from objective control measures such as available options or task-completion rates. In accessibility research on AI-assisted tools, sense of control has emerged as a…

Sign Language Corpus(also: ASL Corpus, Signed Language Corpus)

A structured collection of recorded signed-language performances — typically video, and increasingly motion-capture data — annotated by expert signers with time-stamped linguistic information such as individual signs, non-manual markers, eye gaze, grammatical boundaries, and…

Syntactic Parse Tree(also: Parse Tree, Syntactic Tree)

A tree-shaped data structure that represents the grammatical structure of a sentence according to a formal grammar. Internal nodes correspond to phrases (noun phrase, verb phrase, clause, sentence) and leaves correspond to individual words or signs. Parse trees are produced…