Glossary

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ACM Code of Ethics(also: ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct)

A statement of professional ethics maintained by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) that sets out the moral and professional responsibilities of computing practitioners. Significantly revised in 2018, the Code explicitly addresses accessibility and inclusion, stating…

ACT Rules(also: Accessibility Conformance Testing Rules, ACT-R)

A set of standardized, machine-readable test rules developed by the W3C that provide specific, objective criteria for evaluating whether web content meets accessibility requirements like WCAG success criteria. ACT Rules aim to reduce inconsistency between different automated…

AD Guidelines(also: Audio Description Guidelines, AD Standards)

Established rules and best practices that govern the creation of audio descriptions for video and live performances. AD guidelines cover aspects such as what to describe (actions, characters, settings, on-screen text), language style (present tense, third person, objective),…

ADA(also: Americans with Disabilities Act)

A landmark United States civil rights law enacted in 1990 that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including employment, education, transportation, and access to public and private places open to the general public. The ADA…

ADA Compliance(also: Americans with Disabilities Act Compliance)

Adherence to the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a 1990 US civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in public accommodations, employment, transportation, telecommunications, and government services. ADA compliance…

ARIA(also: Accessible Rich Internet Applications, WAI-ARIA)

A W3C specification that provides a framework of roles, states, and properties to make dynamic web content and custom user interface controls accessible to assistive technologies. ARIA supplements HTML semantics where native elements are insufficient. The first rule of ARIA is:…

ASCII(also: American Standard Code for Information Interchange)

A character encoding standard that uses numeric codes to represent letters, digits, punctuation, and control characters in computers and communication equipment. ASCII assigns values 0-127 to 128 characters, covering the basic Latin alphabet. In accessibility contexts, ASCII is…

ATAG(also: Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines)

A W3C standard that provides guidelines for making authoring tools—such as content management systems, HTML editors, and website builders—both accessible to authors with disabilities and capable of producing accessible content. ATAG 2.0, published in 2015, is organized into two…

Access For All(also: ISO/IEC 24751, IMS Access For All, AfA)

An international standard (ISO/IEC 24751) for describing user accessibility needs and preferences in a portable, application-independent format. Originally developed by the IMS Global Learning Consortium for educational contexts, it was adopted as an ISO standard and uses XML…

Accessibility API Mapping(also: AAM, Accessibility API Mappings, Acc API Mapping)

Accessibility API Mappings (AAMs) are W3C specifications that define how the semantics of web content technologies — such as HTML, SVG, and WAI-ARIA — correspond to features in platform accessibility APIs like MSAA/UIA on Windows, ATK/AT-SPI on Linux, and NSAccessibility on…

Accessibility Conformance Testing(also: ACT, ACT Rules Format)

A W3C technical recommendation that defines a standardized format for writing rules to test web accessibility. The ACT Rules Format provides a consistent structure for describing what to test and what outcomes to expect, aiming to reduce inconsistency between different automated…

Accessibility Evaluation Framework(also: A11y Assessment Framework, Accessibility Testing Framework)

A structured methodology for systematically assessing the accessibility of digital content, products, or services against established standards and guidelines. Effective frameworks define the criteria to be evaluated, the methods for evaluation (automated testing, manual…

Accessibility conformance(also: WCAG conformance, Accessibility compliance)

The degree to which a digital product meets the requirements of an accessibility standard such as WCAG, typically assessed at Level A, AA, or AAA. While conformance provides a measurable baseline for accessibility, it does not guarantee usability for all disabled users — a site…

Accessibility conformance report(also: ACR, VPAT, Voluntary Product Accessibility Template)

A document that records the degree to which a product or service meets accessibility standards such as WCAG, Section 508, or EN 301 549. In enterprise settings, conformance reports are a primary deliverable of the accessibility testing process, used to communicate compliance…

Accessibility ontology(also: A11y ontology, Accessibility knowledge graph)

A formal, structured representation of accessibility concepts, their properties, and the relationships between them, typically expressed in OWL (Web Ontology Language). Accessibility ontologies model domains such as disabilities, assistive technologies, standards, testing…

Accessible Authentication(also: WCAG 3.3.7, Accessible Authentication (Minimum))

A web accessibility requirement introduced in WCAG 2.2 (Success Criterion 3.3.7) that mandates for each step in an authentication process relying on a cognitive function test — such as remembering a password, solving a puzzle, or transcribing distorted text — at least one…

Accessible Canada Act(also: ACA, Canadian Accessibility Act)

Canadian federal legislation (S.C. 2019, c. 10) that aims to make Canada barrier-free by 2040 by requiring federally regulated organisations (banks, telecommunications, transportation, the federal government) to identify, remove, and prevent barriers in areas including…

Accessible PDF(also: Tagged PDF, PDF/UA)

An accessible PDF is a Portable Document Format file that has been structured with tags, reading order, alternative text for images, and other metadata so that it can be navigated and read by assistive technologies such as screen readers. The PDF/UA (Universal Accessibility)…

Adaptive Multi-Rate Codec(also: AMR, AMR Codec, AMR-NB)

A family of audio codecs used in mobile telephony to encode voice for transmission. AMR-NB (narrowband) operates at 300-3,400 Hz with bit rates from 4.75-12.2 kbps, while AMR-WB (wideband, also called HD Voice) extends to 50-7,000 Hz at 6.6-23.85 kbps. AMR-WB is adopted by 3GPP…

Americans with Disabilities Act(also: ADA, ADA 1990)

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is landmark US civil rights legislation enacted in 1990 that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including employment, education, transportation, and public accommodations. Title II…

Application Profile(also: Metadata Application Profile)

A customization of an existing metadata standard that selects, constrains, or extends elements to meet the requirements of a particular community or application. In accessibility, application profiles are used to add accessibility-specific properties to general-purpose metadata…

Audio description(also: AD, Described video, Video description)

Narration added to a media soundtrack that describes important visual information — such as actions, characters, scene changes, and on-screen text — that cannot be understood from the main audio alone. Audio description makes video and live performance content accessible to…

Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG)(also: ATAG, ATAG 2.0)

A W3C Web Accessibility Initiative standard that provides guidelines for designing authoring tools — such as content management systems, website builders, and code editors — that are both accessible to authors with disabilities and capable of producing accessible web content.…

Automated accessibility testing(also: Automated a11y testing, Accessibility checker)

The use of software tools to automatically evaluate digital content against accessibility standards, checking for issues like missing alt text, colour contrast violations, missing form labels, untagged PDF structure, and incorrect heading hierarchy. Automated testing can…

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