Glossary

Search results

Slide Accessibility(also: Presentation Accessibility, Accessible Presentations, Accessible Slides)

The practice of designing and delivering slide presentations so they can be fully accessed and understood by people with disabilities, particularly screen reader users. Key requirements include setting proper reading orders for slide elements, providing alt-text for images and…

Table Linearization(also: Table Serialization)

Table linearization is the process of converting a two-dimensional HTML table into a one-dimensional sequence of text for non-visual presentation. When a screen reader linearizes a table, it reads the content cell by cell, row by row, from top-left to bottom-right, stripping…

User-Generated Content Accessibility(also: UGC Accessibility)

The practice of ensuring that user-generated content such as online reviews, forum posts, comments, and social media contributions is accessible to people with disabilities. Unlike curated website content, user-generated content poses unique accessibility challenges because it…

Visual Description(also: Visual Content Description)

The practice of conveying visual information through non-visual means, primarily text or speech. Visual description encompasses various contexts including image descriptions, alternative text, audio description of video, and assessment descriptors for privacy tools. Research in…

Visual Descriptor(also: Visual Cue, Visual Doneness Indicator)

A description in instructions or content that relies on visual appearance to convey information, such as "cook until golden brown," "the mixture should be translucent," or "form into patties." Visual descriptors are a significant accessibility barrier for blind and visually…

Visual-Syntactic Text Formatting(also: VSTF)

Visual-Syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) is a content presentation method that formats text based on its syntactic structure, using indentation, line breaks, and visual grouping to align with the grammatical structure of sentences. Research has shown VSTF can improve online…

WYSIWYG(also: What You See Is What You Get)

An acronym for "What You See Is What You Get," describing a user interface paradigm where content displayed on screen during editing closely resembles the final output (such as a printed document). While WYSIWYG editors are standard in word processing, they can present…

Web Authoring(also: Web Authoring Tool, Content Authoring, Website Authoring)

Web authoring is the creation and editing of webpage content and structure, historically by writing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and increasingly through graphical WYSIWYG tools (Figma, Wix, Squarespace, WordPress block editors, Google Sites). Authoring tools are themselves…

Web Clutter(also: Page Clutter, Visual Clutter)

Non-essential elements on a web page that do not contribute to the primary content or user task, such as advertisements, decorative images, redundant navigation, social media widgets, and promotional banners. Web clutter disproportionately affects users of assistive…

Web Localization(also: Website Localization, L10n)

The process of adapting a website for a specific locale or market, going beyond text translation to include technical and visual modifications such as adjusting layouts for different text directions, adapting date and currency formats, and modifying images and multimedia for…

Z-Order(also: Stacking Order, Layer Order)

Z-order refers to the front-to-back layering sequence of overlapping objects on a 2-D digital canvas, determining which objects appear in front of or behind others. In accessibility, Z-order is significant because screen readers in presentation software often read objects…

eBook Accessibility(also: Electronic Book Accessibility, Digital Book Accessibility)

The practice of ensuring that electronic books and digital publications are usable by people with disabilities, including those who use screen readers, refreshable braille displays, or other assistive technologies. Accessible eBooks require proper semantic structure (headings,…