Glossary

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Disenfranchised Grief

Disenfranchised grief, a concept developed by Kenneth Doka, describes the experience of people who 'incur a loss that is not, or cannot be, openly acknowledged, publicly mourned or socially supported'. Because the relationship or loss lies outside what a society recognises as…

Disfluency(also: Dysfluency, Speech Disfluency)

Any interruption or break in the normal flow of speech, including repetitions, prolongations, blocks, interjections (such as "um" or "uh"), and revisions. While all speakers experience occasional disfluencies, their frequency and severity distinguish typical speech from…

Disordered Speech(also: Pathological Speech, Atypical Speech)

Speech that differs from typical patterns due to motor, neurological, structural, or developmental conditions. Disordered speech encompasses conditions like dysarthria, apraxia, stuttering, and speech differences from cerebral palsy or Parkinson's disease. For accessibility,…

Displayless Interface(also: Screenless Interface, Eyes-Free Interface)

A displayless interface is a computer interaction system that operates without a visual display, relying instead on audio, speech, haptic, or other non-visual output modalities. These interfaces serve two overlapping user populations: individuals with visual impairments who…

Disruptiveness index(also: D index, Disruption index, CD index)

A bibliometric measure that quantifies the degree to which a scientific paper disrupts or consolidates existing knowledge. Calculated from citation patterns, it ranges from -1 (fully consolidating, where subsequent papers always cite both the focal paper and its references) to 1…

Distance Education(also: Distance Learning, Long Distance Education, Remote Education)

A mode of education in which learners and instructors are physically separated, with teaching and learning mediated through communication technologies rather than face-to-face contact. Distance education predates the internet, historically using mail, radio, and television, but…

Distant speech recognition(also: Far-field ASR, Far-field speech recognition)

Automatic speech recognition performed on audio captured by microphones positioned at a distance from the speaker (typically 2+ meters), rather than close-talk input from headsets or handheld devices. Distant speech recognition is significantly more challenging than close-talk…

Distractibility(also: Attentional Distractibility, Susceptibility to Distraction)

A cognitive characteristic in which a person has difficulty maintaining focus on a task due to sensitivity to irrelevant stimuli in their environment. Distractibility is a feature of many conditions including ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and traumatic brain injury, and can also be…

Distraction Blocker(also: Focus app, Website blocker, Digital self-control tool)

A category of digital well-being software designed to restrict access to distracting applications, websites, or notifications so that users can sustain focus on work or study. Distraction blockers range from operating-system features such as Apple Screen Time and Android Focus…

Distraction Control(also: Distraction Filtering, Focus Mode)

Features or tools that help users suppress distracting content on web pages to maintain focus on their primary task. Distraction control ranges from manual tools (like Apple's Distraction Control in Safari, which lets users select elements to hide) to automated systems that use…

Distraction Management(also: Distraction Reduction, Attention Support)

Strategies, tools, and design approaches that help users minimize unwanted interruptions and maintain focus on their intended tasks, particularly in digital environments. For people with ADHD, distraction management is a core accessibility need because the condition affects the…

Distraction Reduction(also: Distraction Removal, Distraction Minimization)

Design strategies and technologies that minimize or eliminate elements that divert attention from primary content or tasks. In video accessibility for ADHD, distraction reduction involves identifying and removing or de-emphasizing visual elements (overlays, busy backgrounds,…

Distributed Accountability

A collaborative support strategy where responsibility for remembering tasks, meeting deadlines, and maintaining organizational systems is shared across a network of people rather than resting solely on the individual. For ADHD students, distributed accountability manifests…

Distributed Cognition(also: DCog)

A theoretical framework developed by Edwin Hutchins that views cognitive processes as distributed across individuals, artifacts, and the environment rather than confined to a single mind. In accessibility contexts, distributed cognition helps explain how people — particularly…

Distributed Proofreaders(also: DP, PGDP)

A long-running volunteer crowdsourcing initiative, founded in 2000, that proofreads OCR output for Project Gutenberg using a side-by-side web interface showing the scanned page image and the extracted text. Distributed Proofreaders has been credited with accelerating Project…

Diversity Equity and Inclusion(also: DEI, Equity Diversity and Inclusion, EDI)

An organizational framework and set of practices that recognizes, values, and actively supports the full participation of people from diverse backgrounds, including people with disabilities. Diversity refers to the presence of differences (disability, race, gender, culture,…

Do-It-Yourself(also: DIY, DIY Task)

Tasks that an end user performs without professional help - commonly the assembly, setup, learning-to-operate, and troubleshooting of consumer products such as flat-pack furniture, kitchen appliances, alarm clocks, or smart-home devices. DIY tasks demand strict step ordering,…

DocBook(also: DocBook XML)

An XML-based markup language designed for technical documentation and publishing, providing a semantic vocabulary for books, articles, and other prose documents. DocBook separates content from presentation, allowing the same source document to be transformed into multiple output…

Document Accessibility(also: Accessible Documents, Document Remediation)

The practice of creating or converting digital documents so they can be effectively accessed by people using assistive technologies, particularly screen readers. Accessible documents require proper semantic structure (headings, lists, tables with headers), logical reading order,…

Document Analysis(also: Document Image Analysis, DIA)

The process of automatically extracting structure, content, and meaning from document images or files, including layout detection, text recognition, and logical structure identification. In accessibility, document analysis is essential for converting print materials and…

Document Engineering(also: Document Design, Document Processing)

Document engineering is the discipline concerned with the principles, tools, and processes for creating, managing, transforming, and presenting documents in ways that optimise their use across different contexts and audiences. In accessibility, document engineering encompasses…

Document Expansion(also: Query Prediction, Document Enrichment)

An information retrieval technique that enhances a document by augmenting it with additional terms or predicted queries that users might use to search for that content. Methods like DocTTTTTQuery use sequence-to-sequence machine learning models to generate likely search queries…

Document Layout Analysis(also: DLA, page layout analysis)

A computer-vision task that identifies and classifies the visual regions of a document page—headings, paragraphs, tables, figures, captions, lists, headers, and footers—typically using object-detection models trained on datasets such as DocLayNet, PubLayNet, or DocBank. Document…

Document Object Model(also: DOM)

A programming interface for web documents that represents the page as a tree of objects, where each HTML element is a node that can be accessed and manipulated programmatically. The DOM is fundamental to web accessibility because screen readers and other assistive technologies…

Document Object Model(also: DOM)

A programming interface that represents the structure of an HTML or XML document as a tree of objects, where each element, attribute, and piece of text becomes a node that can be programmatically accessed and manipulated. The DOM is foundational to web accessibility because…

Document Semantics(also: Page Semantics, Web Document Semantics)

Document semantics refers to the layers of meaning embedded in a web page that go beyond the raw HTML markup — including layout semantics (spatial relationships between visual elements), content semantics (the nature and structure of textual content), interaction semantics (the…

Document accessibility(also: Accessible documents)

The practice of creating digital documents (PDFs, Word files, presentations, spreadsheets) that can be read and navigated by people using assistive technologies. Key requirements include semantic structure tags, logical reading order, alternative text for images, marked table…

Document structure(also: Structural hierarchy, Document hierarchy)

The logical organization of a document into meaningful components such as headings, sections, paragraphs, lists, and tables. Proper document structure enables assistive technology users to navigate efficiently, understand relationships between content sections, and access…

Dojo Toolkit(also: Dojo)

An open-source JavaScript toolkit for building Ajax web applications, notable in accessibility history for being one of the first major frameworks to incorporate WAI-ARIA support. In 2006, IBM contributed accessibility technology to Dojo, led by Becky Gibson, establishing an…

Doll Therapy

A nonpharmacological intervention used in dementia care in which a person is given a lifelike doll to hold, dress, and care for. For some people with advanced dementia, engaging with the doll can reduce agitation and distress, promote calm, and provide a sense of purpose and…

Domain Adaptation(also: Cross-Domain Transfer, UDA, Unsupervised Domain Adaptation)

A machine learning technique that enables models trained on data from one domain (such as web interfaces) to perform well on a different but related domain (such as mobile app interfaces). Domain adaptation is valuable for accessibility because it allows models trained on…

Domain Specific Language(also: DSL)

A Domain Specific Language (DSL) is a small, specialised programming language designed for writing programs within a particular application domain, as opposed to a general-purpose language like Python or Java. In accessibility contexts, DSLs have been proposed for tasks such as…

Dominance (Emotion)(also: Emotional Dominance, Control Dimension)

In affective science, dominance is the third dimension sometimes added to the two-dimensional valence/arousal plane to form the Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance (PAD) model proposed by Mehrabian and Russell. Dominance describes the degree of control or power an emotion conveys — fear…

Doom Scrolling(also: Doomscrolling)

The tendency to continuously scroll through social media or news feeds despite the content being distressing or unproductive, often losing significant amounts of time in the process. Doom scrolling is particularly problematic for people with ADHD due to the dopamine-seeking…

Dopamine Hunger(also: Dopamine Seeking, Dopamine Starvation)

A colloquial ADHD-community term describing the drive to seek stimulating activities to compensate for differences in dopamine regulation characteristic of ADHD brains. It manifests as impulsivity, novelty seeking, and patterns such as repeated social-media checking, doom…

Double Digital Divide

The intersection of two layers of digital exclusion that compound each other, creating amplified barriers to participation. In disability and global accessibility contexts, the term describes how disability-related accessibility barriers (such as inaccessible interfaces and lack…

Double empathy problem(also: Double empathy theory)

A theory proposed by Damian Milton (2012) that reframes communication difficulties between autistic and neurotypical individuals as arising from a mutual lack of understanding rather than a deficit in autistic people alone. The double empathy problem challenges the dominant…

Down Syndrome(also: Trisomy 21)

A genetic condition caused by the presence of an extra copy of chromosome 21, resulting in intellectual disability and characteristic physical features. People with Down syndrome typically experience challenges with reading, language development, and working memory, though…

Down Syndrome(also: Trisomy 21)

A genetic condition caused by the presence of an extra copy of chromosome 21, resulting in varying degrees of intellectual and developmental differences. People with Down Syndrome may experience challenges with memory, attention, language processing, and fine motor skills that…

Drag and Drop(also: DnD)

An interaction pattern in which users select an on-screen object by pressing and holding, then move it to a new location before releasing. Drag and drop is widely used in visual programming environments, file management, and content editing. It presents significant accessibility…

Dragon NaturallySpeaking(also: Dragon Dictation, Dragon Speech Recognition, Nuance Dragon)

Dragon NaturallySpeaking is a commercial speech recognition software product, originally developed by Dragon Systems and later acquired by Nuance Communications (now part of Microsoft). It converts spoken words into text and computer commands, enabling hands-free computer…

DragonDictate(also: Dragon Dictate)

An early discrete speech recognition system developed by Dragon Systems that allowed users to control computers and dictate text by speaking one word at a time with brief pauses between words. Released in the early 1990s, DragonDictate was one of the first commercially viable…

Drake Music Project(also: Drake Music, DMP)

A UK charity founded in 1988 that facilitates music-making for physically disabled people through technology. The Drake Music Project runs workshops using adapted music technology — including MIDI controllers, switches, and customized software — to enable people with physical…

Dramaturgical framework(also: Dramaturgy, Goffman's dramaturgy, Impression management)

A sociological framework developed by Erving Goffman in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1956) that analyses social interaction as a theatrical performance. The framework distinguishes between the frontstage (the public performance where people present a desired…

Driverless Shuttle(also: Autonomous Shuttle, Self-Driving Shuttle)

A small, slow-speed, self-driving bus or minibus — typically deployed on fixed routes in campuses, airports, or urban trials — that operates without an onboard driver, often with a remote supervisor. Driverless shuttles are a focus of accessibility research because they…

Driving Cessation(also: Driving Retirement, Giving Up Driving)

The process by which a person stops driving a motor vehicle, either voluntarily or due to age-related decline in cognitive, visual, or physical abilities, medical conditions, or legal restrictions. Driving cessation disproportionately affects older adults and has significant…

Drone Accessibility(also: UAV Accessibility, Accessible Drone Piloting)

The design and adaptation of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) and their control interfaces to be usable by people with disabilities. This includes providing alternative input methods such as voice commands, adapted controllers, and tangible interfaces, as well as multimodal…

Drop Foot(also: Foot Drop, Peroneal Nerve Palsy)

A condition characterized by difficulty lifting the front part of the foot, causing the toes to drag along the ground during walking. Drop foot is not a disease itself but a symptom of an underlying neurological, muscular, or anatomical problem, commonly caused by nerve injury…

Dual Channel Audio(also: Dual Audio Channel, Two-Channel Audio)

An audio configuration that provides two independent, simultaneous audio streams to a user, typically through separate channels in a headset. In assistive technology, dual channel audio is important for vision impaired users in call centre environments who need to hear screen…

Dual Coding Theory(also: DCT)

A cognitive theory proposed by Allan Paivio in 1971 that posits humans process information through two distinct but interconnected channels: verbal (language-based) and non-verbal (imagery-based). When information is presented through both channels simultaneously, comprehension…