If you’re ready to make your website accessible, Americaneagle.com is here to help! This glossary list is designed to help you get to know some of the terms you’ll start to see if you’re looking into web accessibility. This glossary was originally published in our summer 2016 issue of Americaneagle.com magazine eaglevision, which contains plenty more valuable information on web accessibility and empowering all online users.
W3C
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web.
Screen Readers
Software programs that allow blind or visually impaired users to read the text that is displayed on the computer screen with a speech synthesizer or braille display. A screen reader is the interface between the computer's operating system, its applications, and the user.
Hover
A mouse hover, also called just hover, triggers an event when a user places a mouse over a designated area, such as a hyperlink on a Web page. The action of moving the mouse over the item causes events such as pop-up windows or description boxes.
Focus Indicators
A keyboard user typically uses the Tab key to navigate through interactive elements on a web page—links, buttons, fields for inputting text, etc. When an item has keyboard "focus," it can be activated or manipulated with the keyboard. A sighted keyboard user must be provided with a visual indicator of the element that currently has keyboard focus. A basic focus indicator is provided automatically by the web browser and is typically shown as a border (called an outline) around the focused element.
ADA Compliance
The Department of Justice (DOJ) published the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Standards for Accessible Design in September 2010. These standards state that all electronic and information technology must be accessible to people with disabilities.
508 Compliance
Section 508, an amendment to the United States Workforce Rehabilitation Act of 1973, is a federal law mandating that all electronic and information technology developed, procured, maintained, or used by the federal government be accessible to people with disabilities.
UX
Short for “user experience.” User experience (UX) refers to a person's total experience using a particular product, system or service.
UI
Short for “user interface.” User interface is the visual part of computer application, website, or operating system through which a user interacts with a computer or software.
WCAG
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are part of a series of web accessibility guidelines published by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the main international standards organization for the Internet.
WAI
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)'s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is an effort to improve the accessibility of the World Wide Web (WWW or Web) for people with disabilities.
Flash
A file format for delivering interactive vector graphics and animation on the World Wide Web, developed by Macromedia.
HTML
A Markup language for describing web documents (web pages). HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. A markup language is a set of markup tags. HTML documents are described by HTML tags. Each HTML tag describes different document content.
SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a methodology of strategies, techniques and tactics used to increase the amount of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine (SERP) – including Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines.
