Glossary

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Key Performance Indicator(also: KPI)

A quantifiable metric used to evaluate the success of an activity, process, or organization against defined objectives. In dashboards, KPIs are typically displayed as prominent single numbers or summary statistics (e.g., Total Sales, Average Revenue, Customer Count) that provide…

Key Remapping(also: Key Rebinding, Control Remapping, Custom Key Bindings)

The ability to reassign keyboard controls to different keys than the software defaults. Key remapping is essential for users with motor disabilities who may only be able to reach certain areas of the keyboard, use one hand, or have limited range of motion. For example, a…

Key Word Signing(also: KWS, Keyword Signing, Signs Supporting English)

An augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) method that uses manual signs from a national sign language alongside spoken words to support communication. Unlike native sign language, KWS users sign only the key content words while speaking complete sentences, making it…

Key-Frame Animation(also: Keyframe Animation, Keyframing)

Key-frame animation is a technique in computer graphics where an animator defines specific poses or states (key frames) at particular points in time, and the computer automatically generates the intermediate frames (interpolation) to create smooth motion between them. In…

Keyboard Accessibility(also: Keyboard Navigation, Keyboard Operability)

The principle and practice of ensuring that all functionality of a website, application, or digital interface can be accessed and operated using only a keyboard, without requiring a mouse, touchscreen, or other pointing device. Keyboard accessibility is foundational to web…

Keyboard Configuration(also: Keyboard Customisation, Keyboard Settings)

The process of adjusting keyboard behaviour and settings to match an individual user's needs and abilities. For people with motor disabilities, keyboard configuration may include enabling accessibility features such as Sticky Keys, Repeat Keys, Bounce Keys, or Slow Keys, as well…

Keyboard Navigation(also: Keyboard Access, Keyboard Operability)

The ability to use all features and functions of a website, application, or software using only the keyboard, without requiring a mouse or other pointing device. Keyboard navigation is essential for people who are blind and use screen readers, people with motor disabilities who…

Keyboard Shortcut(also: Hotkey, Keyboard Accelerator, Access Key)

A key or combination of keys that triggers a specific command or function in software without requiring navigation through menus or interface elements. Keyboard shortcuts are essential for accessibility, enabling users who cannot use a mouse—including screen reader users, people…

Keyframe(also: Key Frame)

A keyframe is a single representative frame selected from a video scene or shot that best captures the essential visual content of that segment. In automated audio description and video captioning systems, keyframe selection is a critical step — the chosen frame is analyzed by…

Keyguard(also: Keyboard Guard, Key Guard)

A rigid cover that fits over a keyboard with holes aligned to each key, allowing users with motor impairments to rest their hands on the surface without accidentally pressing keys. Keyguards help people who have imprecise motor control, tremors, or involuntary movements to type…

Keypad(also: Numeric Keypad, Phone Keypad, Small Keypad)

A keypad is a compact input device with a small number of keys, typically arranged in a 3x4 grid (phone keypads) or other constrained layouts. In accessibility contexts, keypads are relevant both as the *only* viable input device for some users — small physical keypads are…

Keystroke Saving(also: KS, Keystroke Reduction)

A metric used to evaluate word prediction and word completion systems, measuring the percentage of keystrokes that a user can avoid by accepting system predictions instead of typing each character individually. Keystroke saving is calculated by comparing the number of keystrokes…

Keystroke Saving Rate(also: KSR, Keystroke Savings)

A metric measuring the efficiency of text prediction systems by calculating the percentage of keystrokes saved compared to typing the same text on a standard keyboard without prediction. A KSR of 50% means the user needed only half the keystrokes they would have required…

Keystroke Savings(also: KS, Key Savings)

A metric used to evaluate word prediction systems, measuring the percentage of keystrokes eliminated by accepting predictions compared to typing the full text character by character. While keystroke savings is commonly reported in AAC research, it does not directly translate to…

Keystroke-Level Model(also: KLM)

A simplified predictive model from human-computer interaction research, originally developed by Card, Moran, and Newell, that estimates task completion time by decomposing user interactions into elementary operations such as keystrokes, pointing movements, mouse clicks, and…

Keystrokes Per Character(also: KSPC)

A metric used to evaluate the efficiency of text-entry methods by measuring the average number of keystrokes required to produce each character of text. A lower KSPC indicates a more efficient input method. For standard MultiTap on a 12-key phone keypad, the theoretical best…

Keyword Extraction(also: Key Term Extraction, Automatic Keyword Extraction)

A natural language processing technique that automatically identifies the most important or representative words and phrases in a document. In accessibility, keyword extraction can provide blind users with a quick summary of a web page's topic without requiring them to listen to…

Keyword Reading Strategy(also: Content Word Strategy)

The keyword reading strategy is a sentence-comprehension approach in which a reader focuses primarily on high-content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) to derive the meaning of a sentence, while paying less attention to function words (determiners, prepositions, and…

Kinaesthetic Perception(also: Kinesthetic Perception, Kinaesthesia, Kinesthesia)

The sensory awareness of the position, movement, and force of body parts, derived from receptors in muscles, tendons, and joints. In the context of haptic technology and accessibility, kinaesthetic perception provides information about the shape, weight, and spatial extent of…

Kinematic Chain Theory(also: Guiard's Kinematic Chain, Asymmetric Division of Labor)

A theoretical framework developed by Yves Guiard describing how the two hands work together in bimanual tasks. The theory distinguishes between symmetric interactions (both hands perform the same movement) and asymmetric interactions (hands perform different complementary…

Kinesiology(also: Human kinetics, Movement science)

The scientific study of human body movement, encompassing biomechanics, anatomy, physiology, psychology, and neuroscience as they relate to physical activity. In accessibility contexts, kinesiology provides foundational knowledge about how people move and interact with their…

Kinesthetic(also: Kinaesthetic)

Kinesthetic refers to the sense of body movement, limb position and muscular effort, arising from receptors in muscles, tendons and joints and closely related to proprioception. In accessibility and interaction-design contexts, kinesthetic cues - such as the pull a partner…

Kinesthetic Awareness(also: Kinesthesia, Movement Awareness)

The conscious perception of body position, movement, and muscle tension derived from internal sensory receptors in muscles, tendons, and joints. For sighted people, kinesthetic awareness is reinforced by visual feedback — watching their own movements and observing others. People…

Kinesthetic Feedback(also: Kinesthetic Haptics, Force Feedback)

A form of haptic feedback that engages the body’s sense of limb position, movement, and applied force — the kinesthetic sense mediated by receptors in muscles, tendons, and joints — rather than cutaneous sensation alone. Kinesthetic displays include force-feedback joysticks,…

Kinesthetic Interaction(also: Kinesthetic input, Embodied interaction)

Interaction that uses whole-body movement, gesture, or controller-tracked limb motion — as opposed to discrete button presses — to drive a computing system. Kinesthetic interaction is central to extended-reality experiences (VR/AR/MR), where hand tracking, head tracking, and…

Kinesthetic Perception(also: Kinesthesia, Proprioceptive Perception)

The sensory ability to perceive the position, movement, and forces acting on one's body and limbs through receptors in muscles, tendons, and joints. Kinesthetic perception encompasses awareness of limb position (proprioception), detection of movement and velocity, and sensing of…

Kinesthetic Perception(also: Kinesthesia, Kinesthetic Sense, Kinesthetic Feedback)

The sensory awareness of body position, movement, and force through receptors located in muscles, tendons, and joints. In assistive technology, kinesthetic feedback is a component of haptic interaction where users perceive the position of their limbs and the forces applied to…

Kinesthetics(also: Kinaesthetics, Kinesthesia, Kinesthetic sense)

The sense of body position, movement, and muscular effort derived from receptors in muscles, tendons, and joints. Kinesthetics is closely related to — and often used interchangeably with — proprioception, though kinesthesia typically emphasizes awareness of active movement while…

Kiosk Accessibility(also: Self-Service Kiosk Accessibility, Interactive Kiosk Accessibility)

The practice of designing and implementing self-service kiosks and public digital terminals so they can be used by people with a wide range of abilities, including those with visual, hearing, motor, and cognitive disabilities. Kiosk accessibility encompasses hardware…

Knee Buckling(also: Knee giving way)

A sudden loss of knee stability during weight-bearing in which the knee flexes involuntarily, often causing the person to stumble or fall. Knee buckling is commonly caused by quadriceps weakness, neurological conditions (stroke, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury), knee…

Knee-Ankle-Foot Orthosis(also: KAFO)

A lower-limb orthosis that spans the knee, ankle, and foot to provide weight-bearing support and prevent knee buckling or hyperextension in people with significant leg weakness or paralysis - commonly due to stroke, spinal cord injury, post-polio syndrome, or muscular dystrophy.…

Knowledge Base(also: KB, FAQ Database)

A knowledge base is a structured repository of information — typically questions, answers, articles, or how-to guides — that can be searched and browsed to find solutions to problems. In accessibility contexts, knowledge bases serve as important support tools for people with…

Korean Sign Language(also: KSL, Suhwa)

The primary sign language of the Deaf community in South Korea, with its own grammar, vocabulary, and regional variation, and legally recognized as an official language of Korea under the Korean Sign Language Act of 2016. KSL is historically related to Japanese Sign Language due…

Krippendorff's Alpha(also: Krippendorff Alpha, Kalpha)

A statistical measure of inter-rater agreement used to assess how consistently two or more coders classify the same qualitative data. Developed by Klaus Krippendorff, the metric handles any number of coders, any level of measurement (nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio), and…

Kurzweil Reading Machine(also: KRM, Kurzweil Reader)

A pioneering reading device for blind people invented by Ray Kurzweil in 1976, combining optical character recognition (OCR) with text-to-speech synthesis to read printed text aloud. The original device was as large as a stove and produced mechanical-sounding speech, but it…

L1 and L2 Language Learners(also: First Language Learner, Second Language Learner, Native Signer)

In language pedagogy, L1 refers to a learner's first or native language and L2 to a language learned after L1 is established. In ASL education, L1 learners are typically Deaf children of Deaf parents who acquire ASL as their first language, while L2 learners are most commonly…

LGBTQIA+(also: LGBTQ+, LGBT, Queer Community)

An acronym representing the diverse community of people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, asexual or agender, and other sexual orientations and gender identities indicated by the plus sign. In accessibility contexts, LGBTQIA+…

LIME(also: Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations)

An explainable AI technique, introduced by Ribeiro et al. in 2016, that approximates any black-box model's behaviour around a single prediction by fitting a simple interpretable model (usually sparse linear regression) to perturbed versions of the input. The resulting feature…

LLM(also: Large Language Model)

A large neural network trained on enormous volumes of text (and often code and images) to predict and generate natural language. Modern LLMs such as GPT-5, Claude, and Gemini can follow instructions, reason step-by-step, use tools, and — in multimodal variants — interpret images…

LLM Accessibility(also: AI-Generated Accessibility, Generative AI Accessibility)

The study and practice of how large language models (LLMs) and generative AI tools handle digital accessibility in their outputs, particularly when generating code, user interfaces, or content. Research in this area examines whether LLM-generated code meets accessibility…

LLM Agent(also: Generative Agent, Task-Executing Agent)

A software system built around a large language model that autonomously perceives state, plans actions, executes them against an environment (a web page, a mobile app, a shell, a UI), and reflects on outcomes to make progress toward a goal. In accessibility work, LLM agents are…

LLM Disability Bias(also: AI Ableism, Language Model Disability Bias)

Systematic prejudice against people with disabilities embedded in large language models due to biased training data and development processes that underrepresent disabled communities. Research has documented multiple forms of this bias: pretrained language models associate…

LLM Hallucination(also: AI Hallucination, Model Hallucination)

The phenomenon where large language models generate content that is factually incorrect, fabricated, or not grounded in the input provided, while presenting it with apparent confidence. In bias research, hallucinations are particularly concerning because models may invent…

LLM Self-Reflection(also: AI Self-Assessment, Model Self-Evaluation)

A technique in which a large language model is prompted to evaluate and critique its own output, identifying errors, gaps, or areas for improvement. In the context of accessibility, LLM self-reflection involves asking the model to assess whether the code or UI it generated meets…

LLM-Based Auto Correction(also: AI-Powered Text Correction, LLM Autocorrect)

The use of large language models to automatically detect and correct common text errors without requiring manual user intervention. In accessibility contexts, LLM-based auto correction can reduce the editing burden for users with disabilities by fixing predictable errors…

LLM-as-Judge(also: LLM as a Judge, Model-as-Judge)

An evaluation methodology in which a large language model is prompted to assess the quality of some artifact — generated text, code, a UI, or a response from another model — according to a structured rubric. LLM-as-judge is attractive because it scales automated evaluation to…

LSTM(also: Long Short-Term Memory, LSTM Network)

A type of recurrent neural network architecture designed to learn long-term dependencies in sequential data by using special gating mechanisms that control the flow of information through the network. LSTMs are particularly effective for processing time-series data such as…

LaTeX(also: TeX)

A document typesetting language widely used in academia and STEM fields for producing scientific documents containing complex mathematical formulae. LaTeX encodes mathematical content as plain text markup commands (e.g., \frac{a}{b} for a fraction), which makes it inherently…

Lab-Based Evaluation(also: Laboratory Study, Controlled Evaluation)

A research evaluation conducted in a controlled laboratory setting rather than in participants' natural environments. Lab-based evaluations are the dominant method in reading support technology research, offering experimental control but potentially limiting ecological validity.…

Labour Force Participation(also: Workforce Participation, Employment Participation Rate)

The proportion of a population that is either employed or actively seeking employment. In accessibility contexts, labour force participation rates reveal significant disparities: in Norway, for example, only 40.6% of people with disabilities were employed in 2020 compared to…