Glossary
Terms used in accessibility research and practice. Each entry has a definition, common aliases, and category tags.
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- Advanced Driver Assistance Systems(also: ADAS)
- A family of in-vehicle technologies that partially automate driving tasks — adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping, automatic emergency braking, parking assistance, blind-spot monitoring — while a human driver retains overall control. ADAS are relevant to accessibility as steps…
- Automation Transparency(also: AI Transparency (Automation), Transparent Automation)
- The degree to which an automated or autonomous system communicates its current state, intent, and reasoning to the humans who depend on it. In autonomous transport, transparency includes cues such as "holding position for traffic," docking countdowns, or explanations of…
- Autonomous Ferry(also: Self-Driving Ferry, Autonomous Passenger Ferry)
- A waterborne passenger vessel that navigates, docks, and avoids obstacles without a human pilot, typically using a sensor suite (cameras, radar, LiDAR, ultrasonic, IMU, GNSS) and a shore-based supervisory operator. Autonomous ferries are being trialled as sustainable…
- Autonomous Public Transport(also: Autonomous Public Transit, Driverless Public Transport)
- Public-transport services — buses, shuttles, ferries, trams — operated wholly or partly by self-driving technology, typically supervised remotely rather than by an onboard driver. From an accessibility perspective, autonomous public transport simultaneously promises cheaper,…
- Driverless Shuttle(also: Autonomous Shuttle, Self-Driving Shuttle)
- A small, slow-speed, self-driving bus or minibus — typically deployed on fixed routes in campuses, airports, or urban trials — that operates without an onboard driver, often with a remote supervisor. Driverless shuttles are a focus of accessibility research because they…
- Financial Autonomy(also: Financial Independence, Financial Self-Determination)
- The ability of a person to make and enact their own financial decisions — earning, saving, spending, and planning — consistent with their values and goals. For people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, financial autonomy is often constrained by guardianship,…
- 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…
- Situational Trust(also: Situational Trust in Automation)
- A context-sensitive form of trust in an automated system that varies moment-to-moment based on perceived system performance, environment, and the user's own capacity to intervene. Unlike dispositional or generalised trust, situational trust is recalibrated as conditions change —…
- Social Agency
- Social agency is the capacity to shape, initiate, and sustain one's social interactions - to contribute meaningfully to a group, express preferences, and influence shared activity. For people with cognitive disabilities, dementia, or communication differences, social agency is…
9 results.