Glossary

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Edutainment(also: Educational Entertainment, Learning Games)

Content or applications that combine education with entertainment, typically through games, interactive media, or engaging activities designed to teach skills while keeping users motivated and engaged. In the accessibility context, edutainment apps must balance engaging visual…

Electronic Curb-Cut Effect(also: Digital Curb-Cut Effect, Curb-Cut Effect)

The phenomenon where accessibility features originally designed for people with disabilities end up benefiting a much wider population. Named after physical curb cuts in sidewalks — originally mandated for wheelchair users but widely used by people with strollers, delivery…

Embodied Ideation(also: Embodied Design Ideation)

A design method that engages participants in generating ideas through physical movement, bodily interaction, and hands-on exploration rather than purely verbal or written communication. In accessibility contexts, embodied ideation is particularly valuable for including…

Empathy(also: Empathic design, User empathy)

In the context of human-centered design and accessibility, empathy refers to the capacity to understand and share the experiences, needs, emotions, and challenges of users who differ from the designer in ability, age, background, or context. Empathy is a foundational competency…

Empathy Lab(also: Accessibility Lab, Assistive Technology Lab, AT Lab)

A dedicated physical or virtual space where designers, developers, and other team members can experience digital products using assistive technologies and simulations of various disabilities. Empathy labs typically include screen readers, switch devices, eye-tracking systems,…

Empathy Tools(also: Empathy Aids, Empathy-building Tools, Age Suits)

Empathy tools are physical or digital artefacts designed to give non-disabled designers a limited first-hand experience of specific impairments or ageing effects — cataract-simulating goggles, blurring film overlays, age suits that add weight and restrict joint movement,…

Exercise Accessibility(also: Fitness Accessibility, Accessible Physical Activity)

The design of exercise environments, equipment, programs, and technologies to be usable by people with disabilities. Exercise accessibility encompasses both physical spaces (accessible gyms, adapted tracks, swimming pools with lifts) and the technologies and guidance systems…

Experience-Based Co-Design(also: EBCD)

A participatory methodology originally developed in UK health services research that treats people's lived experience - their 'emotional touch-points' of confusion, frustration, or insight - as the core material for designing services or systems. Canonical EBCD stages include…

External Human-Machine Interface(also: eHMI, External HMI)

A class of interfaces on the exterior of a vehicle — typically an automated or autonomous vehicle — designed to communicate the vehicle's intent, awareness, or state to pedestrians, cyclists, and other road users who would otherwise rely on cues from a human driver (eye contact,…

Extreme Users(also: Lead Users, Edge Cases)

A design methodology that focuses on a small set of users with unusual, demanding, or outlying needs rather than statistically representative users. Developed by Pullin and Newell (2007), the approach recognizes that the variability among older and disabled users is too great to…

Extrinsic Motivation

Extrinsic motivation refers to engaging in an activity to achieve external rewards, avoid punishment, or meet external expectations rather than for inherent enjoyment. In accessibility and technology design, extrinsic motivators include gamification elements like badges, points,…

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