Glossary
Terms used in accessibility research and practice. Each entry has a definition, common aliases, and category tags.
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- AI Companion(also: Chatbot Companion, AI Companionship)
- An AI companion is an artificial-intelligence system - typically a text, voice or avatar-based chatbot built on a large language model - explicitly designed to offer users a sense of social presence, intimacy or relational support, marketed as a friend, confidant, mentor or…
- AI Mental Model(also: Mental Model of AI, User Mental Model of AI)
- A user's conceptual representation of how an artificial intelligence system works, including beliefs about its information sources, processing methods, capabilities, and limitations. Mental models of AI are often incomplete, oversimplified, or erroneous, which can lead to…
- AI-Mediated Dialogue
- A paradigm in which a large language model (or similar conversational agent) stands between a user and a task, simulated social situation, or another user — either producing the conversational partner's turns, coaching the user's next turn, or both. AI-mediated dialogue is…
- Ability requirement(also: Ability demand, Interaction prerequisite)
- A capability that a person must possess in order to use a technology system, created implicitly by the system's design. AI systems generate new ability requirements: voice assistants require recognizable speech production, autonomous vehicles require pedestrians to look and move…
- Ability-Based Design(also: ABD)
- A design philosophy that focuses on what users can do rather than what they cannot, adapting systems to leverage each individual's specific abilities. Instead of designing for a "typical" user and then adding accessibility accommodations, ability-based design starts from the…
- Affordance(also: Perceived affordance)
- A property of an object or environment that suggests how it can be used, originally defined by psychologist James J. Gibson in 1977 as the actionable possibilities between an actor and their environment. In design, Donald Norman popularised the concept to describe how visual and…
- Agency(also: User Agency, Sense of Agency)
- The capacity to act, make choices, and exert control over one's own life and environment. In disability studies, agency is distinguished from independence — a person can have agency (the ability to make decisions and direct actions) while still relying on others for support,…
- Always-On Computing(also: Always-available computing, Continuous computing)
- A model of interaction in which computing devices — particularly wearables such as smartwatches, AR glasses, and fitness trackers — remain continuously active and accessible throughout the day rather than being engaged only for discrete tasks. Always-on computing shifts design…
- Ambisonics(also: Ambisonic audio, Ambisonic sound)
- A full-sphere surround sound technique that captures and reproduces audio from all directions — including above and below the listener — using a spherical harmonic representation of the sound field. Originally developed by Michael Gerzon in the 1970s, ambisonics differs from…
- Anthropomorphism(also: Humanization, Anthropomorphization)
- The attribution of human characteristics, emotions, intentions, or behaviors to non-human entities such as technology, animals, or objects. In assistive technology and conversational AI design, anthropomorphism raises important questions about how human-like an interface should…
- Area of Interest(also: AOI, Region of Interest, ROI)
- A defined region within a visual stimulus (such as a screen, webpage, or video frame) that researchers designate for analysis in an eye-tracking study. AOIs allow researchers to quantify how much visual attention participants direct toward specific elements — for example, the…
- Articulation Work(also: Care Articulation, Need Articulation)
- The often invisible labor of putting thoughts, needs, and feelings into words, particularly in care relationships. Articulation work involves expressing what support is needed, coordinating care activities, and communicating between care partners. This concept, originating from…
- Assent(also: Informed assent, Child assent)
- A participant's affirmative agreement to take part in research, used when the individual cannot legally provide informed consent — most commonly children or people with certain cognitive disabilities. Unlike informed consent, assent does not carry the same legal weight but…
- Automatic UI Generation(also: Auto-Generated Interface, Model-Based UI Generation)
- The process of computationally producing a graphical user interface from an abstract specification of its functionality, rather than having designers manually create the visual layout. In accessibility, automatic UI generation is significant because it can produce interfaces…
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