Accessibility Glossary

Browse 12 accessibility terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.

12 Accessibility Terms

Accessible Design
Designing products, interfaces, and experiences so they are usable by people with a wide range of abilities, including those using assistive technologies. In...
Alt Text
Alternative text attached to an image so screen readers and other assistive tools can communicate what the image conveys. In online culture, writing good alt...
ARIA
Accessible Rich Internet Applications — a set of HTML attributes that add semantic meaning to elements for assistive technologies. Roles (role='dialog'),...
Color Contrast Ratio
The relative luminance ratio between foreground text and its background, ranging from 1:1 (identical) to 21:1 (black on white). WCAG AA requires 4.5:1 for...
Digital Accessibility
The practice of making digital products and content usable by people with a wide range of abilities, devices, and assistive technologies. In modern product...
Focus Trap
A technique that constrains keyboard focus within a modal dialog or overlay, preventing Tab from reaching elements behind it. Essential for accessibility —...
Progressive Enhancement
A web development strategy that starts with a baseline of semantic HTML that works everywhere, then layers on CSS for styling and JavaScript for interactivity,...
Radix UI
A library of unstyled, accessible React UI primitives designed to be the foundation for custom design systems. Radix provides the complex behavior and...
Screen Reader
Assistive technology that converts on-screen content to speech or braille output for users who are blind or have low vision. Popular screen readers include...
Scrollbar
A UI control along the edge of a scrollable area that indicates the current viewport position within the total content and allows users to navigate by dragging...
Semantic HTML
Using HTML elements for their intended meaning rather than their visual appearance — <nav> for navigation, <article> for articles, <button> for buttons, not...
WCAG
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines — the international standard for web accessibility published by W3C. Organized around four principles: Perceivable,...

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