Glossary

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Technology Acceptance Model(also: TAM)

A theoretical framework originally developed by Fred Davis in 1989 that explains how users come to accept and use a technology. TAM posits that technology adoption depends on two primary factors: perceived usefulness (the degree to which a person believes the technology will…

Technology Adoption Model(also: TAM)

A theoretical framework developed by Fred Davis that explains how users come to accept and use new technology. The model proposes that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are the primary factors influencing technology adoption decisions. In accessibility research, TAM…

Technology Biography(also: Technology Biographies)

A qualitative research method consisting of structured interview and observation sessions focused on specific elements of a user's interaction with technological artifacts. Developed by Blythe and colleagues, the method encourages sharing and discussion about how a person uses…

Technology Probe

A research method that deploys a simple, functional technology prototype in real-world or realistic settings to observe user interactions and gather feedback about future design possibilities. Unlike polished prototypes, technology probes are intentionally open-ended, designed…

Technology Probe

A simple, flexible technology deployed in real-world settings to gather data about user needs, preferences, and interaction patterns. Unlike polished prototypes, technology probes are intentionally open-ended and incomplete, designed to inspire users and researchers to explore…

Technology acceptance model(also: TAM, UTAUT)

A theoretical framework predicting how users come to accept and use a technology, originally proposing that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use determine adoption. The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) extended this with factors including…

Techshop Method(also: Techshops, QUT Techshop)

A reciprocal co-design research method where researchers learn about participants' perspectives on technology as participants learn about and engage with it. Developed for inclusive technology research with people with intellectual disability, the Techshop format involves…

Testimonial Injustice

A form of epistemic injustice, articulated by Miranda Fricker, in which a speaker's credibility is unjustly deflated because of prejudice attached to their identity. In accessibility and aging research, testimonial injustice occurs when researchers treat older adults' or…

Thematic Analysis(also: TA)

A qualitative research method for identifying, analyzing, and reporting patterns (themes) within data. Thematic analysis involves systematically coding data, grouping codes into themes, and refining those themes to tell a coherent story about the data. It is widely used in…

Think Aloud(also: Think-Aloud Protocol, Verbal Protocol, Concurrent Think Aloud)

A research methodology where participants verbalize their thoughts while performing a task, providing insight into cognitive processes that would otherwise be unobservable. In accessibility research, think-aloud protocols are commonly used during usability testing to understand…

Think Aloud Protocol(also: Think-Aloud Method, Verbal Protocol Analysis, Thinking Aloud)

A usability testing method in which participants verbalize their thoughts, feelings, and decision-making processes while performing tasks with a system or interface. Developed for cognitive interface design research, the think aloud protocol helps evaluators understand how users…

Think-Aloud(also: Think-Aloud Protocol, Verbal Protocol Analysis)

A research method in usability and accessibility testing where participants verbalize their thoughts, strategies, and reactions while performing tasks. Think-aloud protocols are particularly valuable in accessibility research because they reveal the cognitive strategies and…

Think-Aloud Protocol(also: Think Aloud, Verbal Protocol Analysis)

A usability research method in which participants verbalize their thoughts, reactions, and decision-making processes while interacting with a system or performing a task. Think-aloud protocols provide rich qualitative data about user experience, revealing cognitive processes,…

Threat Modeling(also: Security Threat Modeling, STRIDE)

A structured engineering practice for identifying, categorising, and mitigating security and privacy threats in a system before they are exploited. The widely used STRIDE framework (Microsoft) covers six classes — Spoofing, Tampering, Repudiation, Information disclosure, Denial…

Throughput(also: Throughput (Fitts), Pointing Throughput)

In human-computer interaction, throughput is a combined speed-accuracy metric derived from Fitts's law that measures the efficiency of aimed pointing movements, expressed in bits per second (bps). It is calculated by dividing the index of difficulty (a function of target…

Tiered Mentoring(also: Near-Peer Mentoring, Cascade Mentoring)

A mentoring structure in which learners at several stages of development work together, so that each participant has a role model who is only one step ahead of them rather than many. In a tiered model applied to research labs, for example, high-school students are mentored by…

Time Diary(also: Time Use Diary, Activity Diary)

A research methodology in which participants record their activities, experiences, or events in real time or near-real time as they occur, rather than recalling them retrospectively. In accessibility and usability research, time diaries have been used to capture frustrating…

Topic Modeling(also: LDA, Latent Dirichlet Allocation)

A machine learning technique that automatically discovers abstract themes or topics within a collection of documents by analyzing patterns of word co-occurrence. Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) is the most widely used topic modeling algorithm. In accessibility research, topic…

Tower of Hanoi(also: Tower of Hanoi Task, Tower Task)

The Tower of Hanoi is a classic cognitive assessment puzzle used in neuropsychology and educational research to measure multi-step planning and executive function abilities. The task requires moving a set of discs or objects from one position to another according to specific…

Trouble-Indicating Behavior(also: TIB, Trouble Source-Repair)

Verbal or nonverbal behaviors that signal confusion, misunderstanding, or difficulty in communication. In research on dementia and human-robot interaction, TIBs are categorized into types including: requests for repetition, requests for clarification, metalinguistic comments ("I…

TrueSkill(also: TrueSkill Bayesian Rating)

A Bayesian skill-rating algorithm developed at Microsoft Research (Herbrich et al., 2007) that models each player or option as a normal distribution with a mean skill μ and uncertainty σ, updating both after each pairwise match. Originally designed for matchmaking in competitive…

UEQ-S(also: User Experience Questionnaire - Short, Short UEQ)

UEQ-S is an eight-item short version of the User Experience Questionnaire, a standardised survey instrument that measures subjective user experience on a 7-point semantic-differential scale. It captures two broad factors: pragmatic quality (supportive, easy, efficient, clear)…

Upper Baseline(also: Gold Standard, Reference Standard)

In accessibility evaluation research, an upper baseline is a high-quality reference stimulus used to establish the best achievable performance against which other systems are compared. For sign language animation studies, this might be a video of a human signer or a carefully…

Usability Study(also: Usability Test, Usability Evaluation)

A research method that evaluates how easily and effectively users can interact with a product, system, or prototype by observing real users performing tasks. Usability studies measure factors such as task completion rate, error frequency, time on task, and subjective…

Usability Testing(also: Usability Evaluation, User Testing)

A research method in which representative users attempt realistic tasks with a product or prototype while researchers observe and collect data on effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. In accessibility contexts, usability testing with people with disabilities is essential…

User Elicitation(also: Elicitation study, Gesture elicitation study, User-defined gestures)

A participatory user-research method, widely used in gesture and interaction design, in which end users or domain experts are shown a desired system effect (a "referent" such as "rotate this object") and asked to propose the input action they believe should trigger it.…

User Enactment(also: UE, Experience Prototyping)

A research method in which participants explore emerging or future technologies through simulated scenarios using physical enactment stages (mockup environments). User enactment combines brainstorming, where participants speak aloud their thoughts and decisions, with…

User Engagement Scale(also: UES, UES-SF)

A validated self-report questionnaire for measuring user engagement with digital systems across dimensions including focused attention, perceived usability, aesthetic appeal, and reward. Developed by O'Brien and Toms and later shortened to the 12-item UES Short Form (UES-SF),…

User Experience Questionnaire(also: UEQ, UEQ-S, Short UEQ)

A standardised self-report instrument, developed by Schrepp and colleagues, that captures a user's subjective impression of a product across dimensions such as attractiveness, efficiency, perspicuity, dependability, stimulation, and novelty via pairs of contrasting adjectives…

User Participation(also: User Involvement, Participatory Research, Co-production)

The active involvement of end users in the design, development, and evaluation of products, services, or systems that affect them. In accessibility contexts, user participation means including people with disabilities not just as test subjects but as collaborators who contribute…

User persona(also: Persona, Design persona)

A fictional but research-based representation of a user archetype that captures key characteristics, goals, behaviours, and pain points of a segment of the target audience. In accessibility design, personas representing disabled users help development teams move beyond…

User-Sensitive Inclusive Design(also: USID)

A design methodology that adapts user-centered design principles for contexts where the target user population is highly diverse and where individual differences — including those related to disability — are significant design factors. Unlike Universal Design which aims for…

Valence-Arousal Model(also: VA Model, Circumplex Model, Valence-Arousal Space)

A two-dimensional model of affect, introduced by Russell (1980), that represents emotional states along two orthogonal axes: valence (pleasant versus unpleasant) and arousal (activated versus deactivated). Emotions such as cheerful, tense, calm, and sad map to the four quadrants…

Value Sensitive Design(also: VSD)

A design methodology that accounts for human values in a principled and systematic way throughout the technology design process. Value Sensitive Design integrates three types of investigation: conceptual (identifying stakeholders and their values), empirical (studying how people…

Video Coding(also: Behavioural Video Coding, Video Data Coding)

A systematic research method in which trained analysts review video recordings to identify, label, and categorise specific behaviours, actions, emotions, or events. In accessibility and usability research, video coding is used to analyse recordings of user testing sessions to…

Video Elicitation Study(also: Video Elicitation Method)

A research methodology in which participants view video demonstrations of interactions, interfaces, or technologies and then provide feedback, preferences, or reactions based on what they observed. This method is particularly valuable in accessibility research because it allows…

Viewability(also: Video Viewability)

A subjective measure of how watchable and consumable a video is for a particular viewer, encompassing factors like ability to focus on content, level of distraction, information comprehension, and overall comfort with the viewing experience. In ADHD accessibility research,…

Vignette Study(also: Vignette-Based Method, Vignette)

A research method in which participants are presented with short, carefully constructed scenarios describing hypothetical or realistic social situations, then asked to make judgments about appropriateness, fairness, emotional impact, or likely outcomes. Vignettes are widely used…

Virtual audit(also: Remote audit, Virtual streetscape audit, GSV audit)

A method of assessing the physical environment for accessibility features and barriers using street-level imagery such as Google Street View, rather than conducting in-person site visits. Virtual audits allow researchers and practitioners to evaluate conditions like sidewalk…

Visual Attention(also: Attentional Allocation, Gaze Behaviour)

The cognitive process of selectively focusing on specific parts of the visual field while filtering out other information. Visual attention determines which elements in a scene or interface a person notices, how long they focus on them, and in what order. Research has shown that…

Viterbi Algorithm

The Viterbi algorithm is a dynamic-programming procedure for finding the most likely sequence of hidden states in a Hidden Markov Model given a sequence of observations. It is the standard solution to part-of-speech tagging, many speech-recognition tasks, and decoding problems…

Vulnerable population research(also: Research with vulnerable groups)

Research involving participants who may have diminished capacity to provide fully informed consent or who are at elevated risk of harm, including older adults with cognitive decline, people with dementia, children with disabilities, and individuals with intellectual…

WEIRD(also: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic)

An acronym standing for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic — used to describe the demographic and cultural profile of populations that dominate research samples in psychology, HCI, and accessibility studies. The term highlights a significant bias: most…

WEIRD Bias(also: WEIRD Problem)

The overrepresentation of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) populations in research, including HCI and accessibility studies. WEIRD bias means that findings, design guidelines, and technology solutions are predominantly shaped by and for a narrow…

WHODAS 2.0(also: WHODAS, WHO Disability Assessment Schedule, World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0)

WHODAS 2.0 is the World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule, version 2.0, a standardized instrument that measures health and disability across six life domains: cognition, mobility, self-care, getting along with others, life activities, and participation in…

Web Interaction Environment(also: WIE)

A modelling concept defined as a particular audience group's set of intrinsic characteristics upon which tailored evaluation procedures can be applied to a website. Introduced by Lopes and Carrico (2008), WIEs organize user characteristics across four domains: Users (abilities,…

Web Mining(also: Web Data Mining, Web Content Mining)

The application of data mining techniques to extract and discover useful information from web data, including web content, structure, and usage patterns. In accessibility evaluation, web mining can be used to analyse source code and DOM structures at scale to identify…

Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test(also: Wilcoxon Test)

The Wilcoxon signed-rank test is a non-parametric alternative to the paired t-test, used to compare two related samples when the data are ordinal or not normally distributed. It ranks the absolute differences between paired observations and tests whether the sum of positive and…

Within-Subject Design(also: Within-Subjects Design, Repeated Measures Design)

An experimental research design where each participant is exposed to all conditions being compared, rather than assigning different participants to different conditions. In accessibility user studies, within-subject designs are common because they require fewer participants — an…

Within-Subjects Design(also: Repeated Measures Design, Crossover Design)

A research methodology in which the same participants are exposed to all conditions or treatments being compared, with each participant serving as their own control. In accessibility research, within-subjects designs are valuable for comparing assistive technologies or interface…