Glossary

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User Agent(also: Browser, Web Browser)

In web accessibility, a user agent is any software that retrieves, renders, and facilitates user interaction with web content. This includes mainstream web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, as well as assistive technologies such as screen readers that work alongside…

User-Generated Content(also: UGC)

Content such as text, images, videos, and reviews created and shared by end users rather than by the website or platform owner. In e-commerce, user-generated content includes customer reviews, review photos, and Q&A sections. This content poses significant accessibility…

Vision-based Page Segmentation(also: VIPS)

A web page segmentation algorithm that uses both the source code and the visual presentation of a web page to divide it into hierarchical visual blocks. VIPS produces a tree structure where the root node represents the entire page and leaf nodes represent the smallest meaningful…

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

A W3C technical specification that defines a set of HTML attributes (roles, states, and properties) for making dynamic web content and user interface components accessible to people using assistive technologies. WAI-ARIA bridges the gap between rich interactive web applications…

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

A W3C technical specification that defines a set of HTML attributes (roles, states, and properties) to make dynamic web content and custom user interface widgets accessible to people using assistive technologies such as screen readers. ARIA allows developers to communicate the…

Web 2.0(also: Web Two Point Oh, The Read-Write Web)

Web 2.0 refers to the shift in web development that emerged in the early 2000s, characterized by user-generated content, dynamic interfaces, rich interactivity, and social participation rather than static page delivery. For accessibility, Web 2.0 introduced significant…

Web Accessibility(also: Website Accessibility, Digital Web Accessibility)

The inclusive practice of ensuring that all people, particularly disabled and older people, can use websites in a range of contexts of use, including with mainstream and assistive technologies. Achieving web accessibility requires that websites be designed and developed to…

Web Accessibility Service(also: WAS)

A proxy-based intermediary service that sits between a web server and a client browser, intercepting and transforming web content to meet individual users' accessibility needs. Originally prototyped by IBM Research, a Web Accessibility Service parses HTML and related content,…

Web Automation(also: Browser Automation, Web Macro)

The process of automating browsing actions on behalf of a user, such as filling forms, navigating between pages, clicking links, or extracting content. Web automation can be achieved through macros (pre-recorded sequences of instructions), scripted approaches, or Programming by…

Web Complexity(also: Page Complexity, Website Complexity)

A measure of the technical sophistication and structural density of a web page, typically assessed by the number and types of HTML elements, scripts, embedded objects, and interactive features present. In accessibility research, web complexity is an important factor because more…

Web Composition(also: Component-Based Web Development)

Web composition is the practice of building web pages by dynamically combining smaller, reusable pieces of HTML markup — often called snippets, components, or fragments — into complete pages. Modern web frameworks like React, Angular, and Vue are built around this compositional…

Web Crawler(also: Spider, Web Spider, Web Scraper)

An automated program that systematically browses the World Wide Web by following links from page to page, collecting and indexing content. In accessibility, web crawlers are used as part of large-scale automated accessibility evaluation platforms to collect web pages for…

Web Crawling(also: Web Spidering, Web Scraping)

The automated process of systematically browsing and indexing web pages by following hyperlinks from a starting URL. In accessibility evaluation, web crawlers are used to discover and catalogue pages across a website for audit purposes. Two primary traversal strategies exist:…

Web Information Extraction(also: WIE, Web Data Extraction, Web Scraping)

Web Information Extraction (WIE) is a set of techniques for automatically identifying and extracting structured data from web pages. In the context of accessibility, WIE methods are used to analyze the visual rendering of web pages to infer document structure, semantic roles,…

Web Intermediary(also: Web Proxy, Transcoding Proxy)

A system that sits between a user's web browser and the web server, intercepting and modifying HTTP requests and responses to adapt web content before it reaches the user. In accessibility contexts, web intermediaries can transform web pages to make them more accessible — for…

Web Localization(also: Website Localization, L10n)

The process of adapting a website for a specific locale or market, going beyond text translation to include technical and visual modifications such as adjusting layouts for different text directions, adapting date and currency formats, and modifying images and multimedia for…

Web Localization(also: L10n, Website Localization)

The process of adapting a website for a specific locale or target audience, going beyond translation to include cultural, visual, and technical elements such as date formats, colors, images, menu sizes, and page structure. In the context of accessibility, web localization…

Web Mediation(also: Web Content Mediation, Web Accessibility Mediation)

The process of automatically modifying web content as it passes between a web server and a user's browser, typically through a proxy server or browser extension, to improve its accessibility or usability. Web mediation can add missing accessibility features (such as generating…

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…

Web Page Segmentation(also: Page Segmentation, Visual Page Segmentation)

The process of dividing a web page into its constituent visual blocks or semantic regions, such as headers, navigation menus, content areas, sidebars, and footers. Segmentation algorithms analyse both the source code (DOM structure) and the visual rendering of pages to identify…

Web Proxy(also: HTTP Proxy, Intermediary, Edge Service)

A web proxy (or intermediary) is a server that sits between a user's browser and the origin web server, intercepting and potentially modifying HTTP requests and responses as they pass through. In the context of accessibility, proxy-based systems have been used to transform web…

Web Services

A standardized method of communication between software applications over the internet, typically using protocols such as HTTP, XML, SOAP, or REST. In the context of accessibility, web services architecture enables intermediary-based approaches where accessibility…

Web Speech API(also: Web Speech, SpeechSynthesis API)

A browser-native JavaScript API that provides speech recognition and speech synthesis capabilities directly within web applications. The Web Speech API enables developers to add text-to-speech and voice recognition features without requiring users to install screen reader…

Web Transcoding(also: Content Transcoding, Web Page Transcoding)

The process of transforming or reformatting web page content to make it more accessible or usable in different contexts. Transcoding techniques include removing irrelevant elements, reordering content, adding skip links, and simplifying page structure. Originally developed to…

Web Widget(also: Widget, UI Widget, Web Component)

A discrete, interactive user interface element within a web page that allows users to perform specific actions or view dynamic content. Widgets range from simple controls like checkboxes and dropdown menus to complex components like date pickers, chat windows, autocomplete…

Widget(also: UI Widget, Web Widget, Interactive Component)

A discrete user interface object that users can interact with, such as a dropdown menu, slider, tab panel, date picker, modal dialog, or autocomplete field. The W3C defines a widget as a "discrete user interface object with which the user can interact." In web accessibility,…

Widget Role(also: ARIA Role, Component Role)

A property that identifies the type and purpose of a user interface element to assistive technologies. Widget roles communicate what a component is (such as a button, checkbox, slider, or tab) so that screen readers and other assistive tools can announce the element correctly…

Widget accessibility(also: ARIA widget roles, Custom control accessibility)

The practice of ensuring that interactive user interface components — such as drop-down menus, tab panels, accordions, modal dialogs, and sliders — are operable and perceivable by users of assistive technologies. Widget accessibility requires correct implementation of WAI-ARIA…

Wireframe(also: Wireframing, UI Mockup, Page Schematic)

A visual guide representing the skeletal framework of a website or application, showing page layout, content placement, and navigation structure before detailed design begins. Wireframes are fundamental to web development planning and information architecture. However,…

XForms(also: W3C XForms)

XForms is a W3C specification for web forms that separates the purpose of a form (its data model) from its visual presentation, providing richer semantics than traditional HTML forms. Unlike HTML forms where controls are defined by their visual representation (radio buttons,…

XHTML(also: Extensible HyperText Markup Language, XHTML 1.0, XHTML 2.0)

XHTML (Extensible HyperText Markup Language) is a family of W3C specifications that reformulated HTML as an XML application, requiring stricter syntax rules such as properly nested elements, lowercase tag names, and quoted attribute values. XHTML 1.0, published in 2000, was…

XML(also: Extensible Markup Language)

A markup language designed by the W3C for encoding structured data in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. Unlike HTML, which has a fixed set of tags focused on presentation, XML allows authors to define custom tags that describe the meaning and structure…

XPath(also: XML Path Language)

XPath (XML Path Language) is a query language for selecting nodes and computing values from XML and HTML documents. In the context of web accessibility, XPath expressions are used by assistive technologies and accessibility tools to identify and target specific elements within a…

XSLT(also: Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations, XSL Transformations)

A W3C standard language for transforming XML documents into other formats such as HTML, plain text, or different XML structures. XSLT uses template rules that match patterns in the source XML and produce corresponding output, enabling the separation of content from presentation.…

tabindex

An HTML attribute that controls whether an element can receive keyboard focus and its position in the tab order. A tabindex of 0 places an element in the natural tab order, a positive value sets a specific order position, and a negative value (typically -1) allows programmatic…