assistive-tech

Committing an action by keeping a pointer or gaze still on a target for a set time, for input methods that have no click of their own.

Collapsing a cluster of elements, an icon plus a label plus a value, into one thing assistive technology stops at, instead of three stops that mean nothing apart.

A third party script bolted onto a site with a promise of automatic compliance, usually a floating widget of font and contrast toggles that fixes nothing underneath.

The platform flag on a native view that says what it is and how it behaves, the mobile counterpart to a role plus a state, and the thing a custom control has to set by hand.

The parallel tree a browser derives from the DOM, holding the role, name, state, and value that assistive technology actually reads.

Supplementary text announced after a control's name, carrying hint or error detail without becoming part of the name itself.

The string assistive technology announces for a control, computed from label, aria-labelledby, aria-label, or its own content in a fixed order of precedence.

A focus technique where DOM focus stays on a container or input and aria-activedescendant names which child is active, used when focus must not move.

The text alternative that stands in for an image, written to serve the same purpose in the same context rather than to describe every detail.

A proposed API for speaking a message directly to assistive technology, without the live region trick of mutating hidden text and hoping the timing works out.

An attribute that removes an element and its whole subtree from the accessibility tree while leaving it visible on screen.

A live region setting that makes assistive technology re-read the whole region when any part of it changes, instead of only the changed fragment.

A refreshable braille row that renders the same accessibility tree as speech, with abbreviated role names authors can override.

The screen reader mode that intercepts keystrokes for reading and navigation, as opposed to focus or forms mode where keys reach the page.

Marking a region as still loading so assistive technology waits for the finished result instead of reading each row as it streams in.

The text alternative for a chart: a summary of the takeaway plus access to the underlying values, not a recital of the pixels.

The marking of which item in a navigation set is the one you are on, exposed with aria-current so it survives without the colour cue.

An image that carries no information and is given an empty alt attribute so assistive technology skips it entirely.

The screen reader equivalent of the Escape key, a two finger scrub that dismisses a sheet or steps back a level.

The open or closed state of a disclosure, exposed with aria-expanded on the control that owns it rather than on the panel it reveals.

The touch screen reader mode where dragging a finger reads whatever is under it and activation takes a second, deliberate tap, so nothing fires by accident.

The maxim that no ARIA is better than bad ARIA: if a native element does the job, use it rather than pinning a role onto a div and reimplementing the behaviour.

The one name that covers a set of controls, a question above its radio buttons or a heading above an address block, so each field is heard in context.

A hint on a trigger that says something will open and what kind of thing it will be, a menu, a listbox, a dialog, before the reader commits to pressing it.

The markup that ties a data cell to its row and column headers, so a cell read on its own still says what it is.

The nested outline formed by heading levels, navigated directly by assistive technology and broken by skipping a level or picking a level for its size.

A whole-screen colour inversion applied by the OS, which flips a design nobody tested upside down and turns every shadow into a highlight.

The programmatic link between a label and its field, made by for and id or by wrapping, which makes the label clickable and the field named.

A named region role (banner, navigation, main, complementary, contentinfo, search) that lets assistive technology jump between the major parts of a page.

The declared language of a document or a passage inside it, which picks the voice, the pronunciation rules, and the hyphenation a reader gets.

A reading aid that dims everything except one to five lines of text, so the eye has a single band to track and cannot skip or reread a line by accident.

A container marked so assistive technology reads changes inside it without moving focus, used for messages that appear after an action.

An extended text alternative for a chart, diagram, or map, linked or referenced because a short alt string cannot carry the content.

A screen reader gesture that fires the one action a screen is most likely about, so the reader does not have to hunt for the control.

The three things every control has to expose to assistive technology: what it is called, what kind of thing it is, and what state it is currently in.

A focusable control placed inside another control, such as a button inside a link or a checkbox inside a clickable row, which garbles the announcement and can leave the inner control unreachable.

A child the accessibility tree is told to adopt from elsewhere in the DOM, used when the nesting a role requires is impossible in the markup.

The document title, the first thing a screen reader speaks and the only label a reader has when picking between tabs, windows, and history entries.

The urgency setting on a live region: polite waits for a pause in speech, assertive interrupts whatever is being read.

Stripping an element of its semantics while leaving it on screen, so a table used for layout or a list used for spacing stops being announced as one.

The rule that some roles flatten everything inside them into their own label, which is why an icon and a span inside a button are never announced separately.

How a synthetic voice says a word, and the hints an author can give when the default reading turns a product name, a units string, or a homograph into nonsense.

Speaking a page's own prose with a synthetic voice, highlighting each word as it is spoken. A reading aid for people who can see the screen, not a screen reader.

The order content is exposed in the DOM, which drives both speech output and tab order, and which visual reordering can silently contradict.

A second cursor a screen reader user can move over the screen to read text without moving the system focus, so inspecting a region does not disturb the app.

An author supplied name for a widget's role, spoken in place of the stock role name, which overrides the platform wording and misleads easily.

VoiceOver's dial for choosing what a swipe or flick moves between: headings, links, landmarks, form controls, or characters.

Telling assistive technology that a client side navigation happened, by moving focus to the new heading or posting the new title to a live region.

A screen reader mode that switches the display off entirely while navigation keeps working, used for privacy and by sighted testers checking an audio-only run.

Blowing part of the screen up many times over, so a reader sees a keyhole of the layout at a time and anything far from the action is effectively off screen.

Software that speaks or brailles the accessibility tree and supplies its own keyboard commands for moving through a page.

Reaching for the element that already means what you mean, so name, role, keyboard behaviour, and platform conventions arrive for free instead of being rebuilt.

Telling assistive technology how big a list really is and where an item sits in it, so a windowed or paginated list still announces "item 6 of 16".

The announced direction of the one column a table is currently sorted by, carried on that column header alone rather than on every sortable header.

A change in content that reports progress, result, or state and must be announced without taking focus, such as a count of search results.

How a screen reader is told about text that arrives token by token, holding the region quiet while it streams and speaking once when the answer is complete.

Operating a device with one or two switches, where a scanning cursor steps through targets in turn and a press selects the highlighted one.

Marking a control with a concept code so a reader who uses an augmentative symbol set sees their own familiar picture in place of your icon and wording.

How much a screen reader says about each thing it reaches, a user setting that decides whether your carefully written description is heard at all.

Content removed from the visual layout but left in the accessibility tree, so screen readers announce what the design leaves unsaid.

Operating an interface by speaking control names or numbered overlays, which makes the visible wording of a control its address.