Glossary
Terms used in accessibility research and practice. Each entry has a definition, common aliases, and category tags.
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- Scaffolding(also: Instructional Scaffolding, Cognitive Scaffolding)
- A support strategy that provides temporary, structured assistance to help a learner accomplish tasks they cannot yet perform independently. In digital accessibility, scaffolding can take the form of progressive disclosure, step-by-step guidance, contextual help, or adaptive…
- Scenario-based design(also: SBD, Scenario-driven design)
- A design methodology that uses narrative descriptions of how people interact with technology in specific contexts to drive the design process. Scenarios ground abstract requirements in concrete human experiences, helping designers anticipate real-world use situations including…
- Shift-Left Accessibility(also: Early-Stage Accessibility, Accessibility by Design)
- An approach to software development that moves accessibility considerations earlier in the development lifecycle — from testing and remediation phases to requirements gathering and design phases. The term borrows from the broader "shift-left" movement in software engineering,…
- Socio-Technical Infrastructure(also: Sociotechnical System)
- The interconnected combination of social structures (institutions, policies, norms, relationships) and technical systems (software, hardware, platforms) that together shape how people interact with technology and each other. In accessibility contexts, socio-technical…
- Somaesthetic Appreciation(also: somaesthetics)
- A design philosophy concerned with cultivating heightened bodily awareness and first-person experience as a resource for interaction design. Derived from philosopher Richard Shusterman's somaesthetics, it positions the body not merely as a tool or data source, but as a site of…
- Surrogate Users(also: Proxy Users)
- Individuals who stand in for actual end users during design and evaluation processes, typically used when direct user involvement is impractical, ethically problematic, or insufficient. In accessibility research, surrogate users may include actors trained to portray people with…
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