Glossary

Assistive Technology

Assistive technologies are products used by people with disabilities to help accomplish tasks that they cannot accomplish otherwise or could not do easily otherwise. When used with computers, assistive technologies are also referred to as adaptive software. Some assistive technologies rely on output of other user agents, such as graphical desktop browsers, text browsers, voice browsers, multimedia players, plug-ins.

Adaptive Strategies

Techniques that people with disabilities use, with or without assistive technologies, to assist in navigating Web pages. This is not a comprehensive list.

Cascading Style Sheets

CSS describe how documents are presented on screens, in print, and even in spoken voice. Style sheets allow the user to change the appearance of hundreds of Web pages by changing just one file. A style sheet is made up of rules that tell a browser how to present elements such as headings, paragraphs, or lists in a document. Numerous properties may be defined for an element; each property is given a value. Examples are font properties, color and background properties, text properties, box properties, classification properties, and units. The term cascading refers to the fact that more than one style sheet can be used on the same document, with different levels of importance.

Cross Browser programs

Programs such as Amaya, Opera, Mosaic, Netscape, Internet Explorer, and others that are used to view pages on the World Wide Web.

Cross Platform

Available for more than one type of computer. For example, a cross-platform program might be available for PC, OS/2, and Macintosh. A computer that can understand, and run programs in, different operating systems; for example, a PowerPC that can run Macintosh and Windows programs.

Device Independence

There are significant efforts to integrate Web technologies into various devices (e.g., mobile, TV sets) other than the traditional Web access equipment such as PCs. However, we are faced with the possibility that services for those devices may not interoperate with each other or with the existing Web. That would not only cause fragmentation of the Web space, but also make Web device independent authoring impossible. W3C has particular interests in device independent Web access and single authoring. The World Wide Web Consortium and its Members are well-positioned to lead developments to avoid incompatible solutions. The Consortium is working towards making the information of the World Wide Web accessible to various devices and achieving Web device independent authoring. The Device Independence Activity is newly created and merges the "Mobile Access Activity" and "TV and the Web Activity" to facilitate interchange in the interest of device independent Web access and authoring. This new Activity is not added to the Mobile nor the TV & the Web Activity, but rather, replaces them.

Frames

Aframe is a bordered area that acts as an independent browser window. There can be a number of frames within the same page, and they can be separately scrolled, linked, and viewed. Sometimes a frame can be used to view an entirely different Website without leaving the original site that contains the frame. To view a page that has frames, one must use a WWW browser that supports frames

Graceful Transformation

Flexible design. Flexible so that users can operate them in different ways (with keyboard and mouse), and flexible so that they transform gracefully into intelligible and useful pages if particular technologies are not supported, or cannot be used by particular users or browsers.

HTML

HyperText Markup Language. The language used to create World Wide Web pages. This language is a type of coding that web browsers like Internet Explorer interpret as the text, pictures, and hyperlinks that we encounter when we use the web. Web designers may write HTML in an application as simple as Windows Notepad or purchase professional tools such as Macromedia Dreamweaver.

HTML Editor

HTML editors allow a designer to type content just as a word processor does. In the background, the software generates HTML code, the language of the World Wide Web. Check with your technical staff regarding HTML editing software that may be available to you.

Hyperlinks

Text that has hyperlinks. When hypertext is viewed with an interactive browser, certain words appear as highlighted by underlining or color; clicking on a highlighted link leads to another location with more information about the subject. The term was invented by Ted Nelson.

Image Map

An image map is an image that has either a region or regions that act as a hyperlink. For example, think of an image of the state of Wisconsin. Each county of the state has been set as a hyperlink. When a user chooses this hyperlink region, he/she is linked to the web site for the county.

Image maps are either client side or server side. A client side image map has its hyperlink regions created within the web editing software. Web editing software allows the designer to select an image, then mark "hotspot" hyperlink regions by tracing over an area. Most image maps are client side. Server side image maps are more complex. In a server side image map, a web server controls the interactivity of the hotspot regions of the image map.

Interoperability

The ability of software and hardware on different machines to communicate with each other.

Java Script

A cross-platform WWW scripting language from Netscape Communications, very popular because it is simple and easy to learn.

Legacy Page

A legacy web is any page that was created prior to November 1, 2001. It is the responsibility of designers to see that all legacy pages are accessible by Nov. 1, 2003, or sooner if such a request is made.

Multimedia

Communication that uses any combination of different media, and may or may not involve computers. Multimedia may include text, spoken audio, music, images, animation and video. The large amounts of data required for computer multimedia files makes CD-ROMs a good option for storage; but there are other ways of receiving multimedia communications, such as the World Wide Web.

Multi-platform

Usable by several types of computers or operating systems

Opera

An alternative to Internet Explorer or Netscape Communicator. The Opera browser provides similar functionality to the major browser types. It also provides several functions that designers can utilize when evaluating page accessibility.

PDA

Personal Digital Assistant. A pocket-sized personal computer. PDAs usually can store phone numbers, appointments, and to-do lists. Some PDAs have a small keyboard, others have only a special pen that is used for input and output. A PDA can also have a wireless fax modem. Files can be created on a PDA which are later entered into a larger computer. Apple's Newton is a well-known PDA.

Plug-In

An application that is downloaded and activated through your web browser. A common example is Adobe Acrobat Reader. A web designer may place content that has been scanned from a book or periodical on the web as a PDF. To access this file type (.pdf), a user must have downloaded a copy of the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. When the user attempts to open the PDF file, the web browser calls the Adobe Acrobat Reader into action. It opens the PDF and allows the reader to access the information. Other common plug-ins include: Quicktime, Real Player, and the Macromedia Flash player.

Retrofit

Process of taking an existing web page from an inaccessible form to an accessible form. Many departments have chosen to redesign a new site rather than take on the tedious task of retrofitting.

Screen Reader Software

Software used by individuals who are blind or who have dyslexia that interprets what is displayed on a screen and directs it either to speech synthesis for audio output, or to refreshable Braille for tactile output. Some screen readers use the document tree (i.e., the parsed document code) as their input. Older screen readers make use of the rendered version of a document, so that document order or structure may be lost (e.g., when tables are used for layout) and their output may be confusing.

Section 508

Section 508 requires that Federal agencies electronic and information technology is accessible to people with disabilities. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires access to electronic and information technology procured by Federal agencies. These standards have been folded into the Federal government's procurement regulations.
http://www.access-board.gov/508.htm

Server Side / Client Side

Image maps are broken into two categories: Server Side - An image map in which the map that relates parts of the image to different URLs is stored on the server Client Side - An image map in which the map that relates parts of the image to different URLs is stored in the current file.

Scripting

Programming code that is part of a web page. Examples include javascript and active server page coding (ASP), as well as a host of others. Most scripts perform a function that HTML can't do, such as inserting a date and time or calculating numbers.

Tables

Data / layout. A presentation of information organized in rows and columns.

Text Equivalent

An HTML attribute that displays a block of text as an alternative to an image, for text-based browsers. It is used inside the <IMG> tag; the format is <IMG SRC="url"ALT="text">.

Text-Only Web Page

An alternative to a web page. A text-only page must contain the content equivalent of the regular page. For example, if an image is used on the web page, the text-only version would contain a full description of the image at the exact location where the visual user would have encountered the image on the original page.

Validation

Bringing an HTML-coded page into compliance with established HTML standards. There are a number of validation sites on the Internet that provide the service of checking an HTML page and identifying any problems. The reason for validating an HTML page is to make sure it can be read by the different browsers that are in use.

W3C

The World Wide Web Consortium was created in October 1994 to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability.

WCAG

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group - part of the W3C

WAI

Web Accessibility Initiative. The World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) commitment to lead the Web to its full potential includes promoting a high degree of usability for people with disabilities. WAI, in coordination with organizations around the world, pursues accessibility of the Web through five primary areas of work: technology, guidelines, tools, education and outreach, and research and development.