Glossary

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Wayfinding(also: Navigation, Orientation and mobility)

The process by which people orient themselves in physical or digital spaces, determine their destination, and navigate a route to reach it. Wayfinding encompasses the cognitive, sensory, and physical strategies people use to understand where they are, where they need to go, and…

Wayfinding(also: Navigation, Orientation)

The process by which people orient themselves and navigate through physical or digital environments. Accessible wayfinding encompasses multiple modalities: visual signage with sufficient contrast and text size, tactile maps and guidance paths for blind users, audio announcements…

Weak Central Coherence(also: WCC, Central Coherence Theory)

A cognitive theory proposing that individuals with autism tend to process information in a detail-focused, piecemeal way rather than integrating it into a coherent whole. In the context of web accessibility, weak central coherence means autistic users may focus intensely on…

Wearable Assistive Technology(also: Wearable AT, Assistive Wearables)

Electronic devices worn on the body—such as smartwatches, smart glasses, rings, or headbands—that provide assistive functionality for people with disabilities. Wearable assistive technology leverages built-in sensors (accelerometers, gyroscopes, cameras) and connectivity to…

Wearable Camera(also: Body-worn Camera, Head-mounted Camera, Egocentric Camera)

A camera worn on the body — typically mounted on glasses, a hat, or the chest — that captures images or video from the wearer's perspective (egocentric view). In assistive technology for blind and low vision users, wearable cameras coupled with computer vision can provide…

Wearable Computing(also: Wearable Technology, Wearables)

Electronic devices and computing systems designed to be worn on the body, integrated into clothing, or carried as accessories. Wearable computers can continuously monitor the user and their environment, providing real-time feedback, navigation assistance, health monitoring, or…

Wearable Haptic Device(also: Haptic Wearable, Vibrotactile Wearable)

A body-worn device that delivers tactile feedback through vibration motors, actuators, or other mechanisms to convey information to the wearer through the sense of touch. Wearable haptic devices range from simple single-motor wristbands to multi-motor armbands, gloves, and belts…

Wearable Haptics(also: Wearable Haptic Device)

Haptic feedback systems designed to be worn on the body — rings, wristbands, gloves, vests, shoes, or exoskeletons — that deliver tactile, vibrotactile, or kinesthetic cues during mobile, hands-free use. Wearable haptics are a core building block of assistive navigation,…

Wearable Immersive Virtual Reality(also: WIVR, Wearable VR)

A category of virtual reality systems designed to be worn on the body, typically using lightweight, portable headsets such as smartphone-based viewers (e.g., Google Cardboard). WIVR prioritizes affordability, portability, and ease of use over the high fidelity of tethered VR…

Wearable Sensing(also: Wearable Sensors, Wearable Monitoring)

The use of body-worn devices such as smartwatches, wristbands, and biosensor patches to continuously monitor physiological signals including heart rate, electrodermal activity, skin temperature, blood volume pulse, and body movement. In mental health applications, wearable…

Wearable Sensor(also: Body-Worn Sensor, Wearable Device)

A small electronic device worn on the body that continuously collects data about the wearer's movements, physiological state, or environment. In accessibility and rehabilitation contexts, wearable sensors such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, and inertial measurement units can…

Wearable Sensors(also: Body-Worn Sensors, Wearable Sensor Technology)

Electronic devices worn on the body that collect data about movement, physiological signals, or environmental conditions. In accessibility contexts, wearable sensors include accelerometers, gyroscopes, and inertial measurement units (IMUs) embedded in clothing, shoes, watches,…

Wearable Technology(also: Wearables, Wearable Devices)

Electronic devices designed to be worn on the body, such as smartwatches, fitness trackers, smart glasses, and haptic wristbands. In accessibility contexts, wearable technology offers unique advantages for delivering notifications and information through multiple sensory…

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 Assessment(also: Accessibility Evaluation, Accessibility Audit, Web Accessibility Testing)

The process of evaluating websites and web applications to determine how well they meet accessibility standards and guidelines, typically WCAG. Assessment methods include automated testing with evaluation tools, manual expert review, and user testing with people with…

Web Accessibility Audit(also: Accessibility Audit, WCAG Audit)

A systematic evaluation of a website or web application against accessibility standards (typically WCAG) to identify barriers that prevent people with disabilities from accessing content. Audits may be automated (using tools like Google Lighthouse, axe, or WAVE), manual (expert…

Web Accessibility Barrier(also: WAB, Accessibility Barrier)

Any element, design pattern, or technical implementation on a web page that prevents or hinders people with disabilities from accessing, understanding, or interacting with content. Common web accessibility barriers include images without alternative text, videos without…

Web Accessibility Barrier Score(also: WAB, WAB Score)

A quantitative metric for measuring the accessibility level of a website, defined as the mean value of the failure rate of accessibility checkpoints on a page, weighted by the priority of each checkpoint. The failure rate is the number of violations of a checkpoint divided by…

Web Accessibility Directive(also: WAD, Directive 2016/2102)

A European Union directive adopted in 2016 requiring all public sector bodies in EU member states to make their websites and mobile applications accessible. The directive mandates compliance with EN 301 549 (which incorporates WCAG 2.1 AA) and requires public sector…

Web Accessibility Evaluation(also: Accessibility Assessment, Accessibility Review)

The process of assessing whether a website or web application meets accessibility standards and can be used by people with disabilities. Evaluation methods include automated testing using tools like axe-core, WAVE, or Lighthouse; manual expert review against WCAG success…

Web Accessibility Initiative(also: WAI)

A program of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that develops strategies, standards, and supporting resources to make the web accessible to people with disabilities. Founded in 1997, WAI is responsible for producing the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the Authoring…

Web Accessibility Quantitative Metric(also: WAQM)

An accessibility evaluation metric that calculates a quantitative score for a website based on automatically generated evaluation reports. WAQM computes the failure rate for each tested page, then derives the overall website accessibility value by weighting pages according to…

Web Accessibility Remediation(also: Accessibility Remediation, A11y Remediation)

The process of identifying and fixing accessibility barriers in existing websites and digital content to bring them into compliance with standards like WCAG. Remediation can be manual (developers editing HTML, CSS, and ARIA directly), semi-automated (using tools that detect…

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 Adaptation(also: Content Adaptation, Web Content Adaptation)

The process of automatically modifying web content to improve usability, accessibility, or presentation for specific users, devices, or contexts. Web adaptation techniques include restructuring page layouts, generating content summaries, creating hierarchical outlines of page…

Web Aesthetics(also: Visual Aesthetics, Website Aesthetics)

The study and application of visual appeal in web design, encompassing how users perceive and respond to the visual qualities of websites. Research has identified two main dimensions of web aesthetics: classical aesthetics (characterised by simplicity, clarity, and orderliness)…

Web Agent(also: Autonomous Web Agent, Browser Agent)

An AI system that can autonomously perform tasks on websites by interpreting user goals and executing actions such as clicking, typing, and navigating. Web agents often use large language models or multimodal models to interpret page content and determine appropriate actions.…

Web Authoring(also: Web Authoring Tool, Content Authoring, Website Authoring)

Web authoring is the creation and editing of webpage content and structure, historically by writing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and increasingly through graphical WYSIWYG tools (Figma, Wix, Squarespace, WordPress block editors, Google Sites). Authoring tools are themselves…

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 Clutter(also: Page Clutter, Visual Clutter)

Non-essential elements on a web page that do not contribute to the primary content or user task, such as advertisements, decorative images, redundant navigation, social media widgets, and promotional banners. Web clutter disproportionately affects users of assistive…

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 Compliance Engineering

A discipline within Web Engineering focused on the application of quality assurance, testing, and management processes to ensure that web applications conform to standards, policy environments, and other quality criteria such as accessibility requirements. Web Compliance…

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 Content Filtering(also: Content Filtering, Page Filtering)

The process of selectively displaying or hiding elements on a webpage based on specified criteria. Web content filtering encompasses both type-based filtering (e.g., ad blockers that remove advertisements) and relevance-based filtering (e.g., task-specific systems that assess…

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 Inclusion(also: Digital Inclusion, Web for All)

The principle and practice of ensuring that the web is usable by and beneficial to all people, regardless of disability, language, literacy, cultural background, technical proficiency, or socio-economic status. Web inclusion extends beyond traditional web accessibility by…

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 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 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 Mobility(also: Hypertext Mobility, Web Navigation Mobility)

A conceptual framework that applies principles of physical mobility and wayfinding to web navigation, particularly for visually impaired users. Web mobility encompasses the ability to move through hypertext with purpose, ease, and accuracy, requiring knowledge of current…

Web Navigation(also: Website Navigation, Web Browsing Navigation)

The process of moving through and finding information on websites, encompassing strategies like following links, using search, scanning headings, and interacting with menus and filters. Web navigation presents fundamentally different experiences depending on access method:…

Web Page Complexity(also: Page Complexity, Structural Complexity)

A measure of how much a web page contains in terms of interactivity, embedded media, and structural richness. The W3C's WCAG-EM defines complexity through three factors: level of interactivity, source and method of content generation, and implementation style. Quantitative…

Web Page Preview(also: Page Preview, Link Target Preview)

A summary or representation of a web page's content provided to users before they navigate to that page, allowing them to assess its relevance without committing to a full visit. For sighted users, visual previews like thumbnails or pop-up snippets serve this purpose. For screen…

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…