List Of Common Accessibility Terms And Definitions

If you happen to have a website, you need to make sure that it is accessible to everyone. That means making sure the website is ADA compliant. But to do this, you will need to know the importance of website accessibility and definitions. So, what are some of the common accessibility terms and definitions?

There is a lot of accessibility terminology that everyone should know. For instance, the alternative text helps screen readers with assistive technologies. As a result, the visually impaired can use it to hear texts. Another assistive technology is a braille device. It helps the visually impaired read by raising bumps on a surface.

You need to know these common accessibility terms to build your website. It is also essential for you to implement these. Reading the full article will allow you to learn more about these. So let’s get right into it.

What Is Accessibility?

Accessibility means being able to access something. But when we talk about accessibility in this article, we are focusing on website accessibility. This means inclusive accessibility and usability for people with disabilities.

Website accessibility is important for people with disabilities. You need to meet the ADA standards when building a website. So that people with disabilities have a more inclusive experience.

According to DDIY, 61 million adults in the USA live with a disability. 59.6% of these people have internet access. Which makes it extremely important for you to understand the terminology.

Examples Of Common Accessibility Terms And Definitions

There is a lot of assistive technology and accessibility jargon. For your easier understanding, here are some examples of common accessibility terms and definitions –

Accessibility Remediation

Accessibility remediation means the part of the project where you make things accessible. This is the most essential part of your website during development.

Eliminating accessibility barriers for people with disabilities is the number one priority. You should identify accessibility features and implement them on your website. For instance, your top priority while creating a website is accessibility remediation.

Alternative Text

The alternative text refers to the description written by the developer. The texts are embedded into images. These texts are also invisible. This is important because it goes hand in hand with screen readers.

Alternative texts help screen readers read the text aloud for blind users. You can add images without worrying if you use alternative text on your website. So, alternative texts are a must.

Audio Browsers

To browse the web, we use different types of web browsers. Similarly, visually impaired people use special web browsers called audio browsers. It can turn text into speech. Therefore, it acts as a screen reader. This has been made possible thanks to HTML5 audio.

These browsers have speech recognition capabilities. Meaning the visually impaired can use it with their voice.

Braille Display

The visually impaired use a braille display for showing braille characters. You might have heard of a braille book. This works the same way.

A braille display converts text to braille on a screen. It does so by raising bumps via holes on an even surface. This surface comes with the display itself. As a result, the visually impaired can feel the braille texts and read them too.
Captions

Captions are text generators on screen that too in real-time. It is the textual presentation of sounds, like dialogues or noises in movies.

Captions help people with hearing disabilities. It allows them to understand what the characters are saying or what noises are playing on the screen.

Screen Readers

Screen readers are one of the most useful assistive technologies available. It reads through the text aloud to help visually impaired people.

Alternative texts help this technology in a big way. You could say these two accessibility technologies go hand in hand. Without alternative texts, a screen reader cannot describe images. So, it is essential to use alternative texts.

Speech Recognition

Speech recognition or voice recognition is a software application. It enables a computer or handheld device to listen to and accept vocal commands.

This is crucial because people with movement disabilities can use devices without a mouse or a keyboard. As a result, this is an important feature that devices must have to make them more accessible.

Conclusion

So, now you know what are some of the common accessibility terms and definitions. By knowing these, you can now understand the importance of web accessibility. These can help you to build a website for your business that is accessible to all. Here at ADA For Web we strive to help businesses achieve exactly that.

So, be sure to get in touch with us to get started on making your website accessible to a wider audience.

Working on a website can be difficult. Adding new media and updating pages is chore, even though you know your company website needs to evolve and become more accessible to the many users you are trying to reach. Maybe when you first built it, accessibility wasn’t even really discussed. But now you’ve taken a step back, looked at your customer base with a desire to include everyone and you’ve realized just how important it is to make your site accessible. However, the thought of building a robust site that can do all the things you want it to do is overwhelming.

What is Web Accessibility

A practice of designing and coding the website in order to provide complete compatibility in accessing it by people with disabilities. In addition, it is a way to improve search engine optimization only an ADA Compliant Web Designer will help you to make your website Compliant. Is your website compatible? By going through the checklist below, you can get the answer.

Assessing Current Web Pages and Content

The website must include a feature like a navigation link at the top of the page. These links have a bypass mechanism such as a “skip navigation” link. This feature directs screen readers to bypass the row of navigation links and start at the web page content. It is beneficial for people who use screen readers to avoid to listen to all the links each time they jump to a new page.
All the links should be understandable when taken out of the context. For example, images without alternative text and links without worded as “click here”.
All the graphics, maps, images, and other non-text content must provide text alternatives through the alt attribute, a hidden/visible long description.
All the documents posted on the website should available in HTML or another accessible text-based format. It is also applicable to other formats like Portable Document Format (PDF).
The online forms on the website should be structured so assistive technology can identify, describe and operate the controls and inputs. By doing this, people with disabilities can review and submit the forms.
If the website has online forms, the drop-down list should describe the information instead of displaying a response option. For instance, “Your Age” instead of “18-25”.
If the website has data charts and tables, they should be structured so that all data cells are associated with column and row identifiers.
All the video files on the website must have audio descriptions (if necessary). This is for the convenience of blind people or for having a visual impairment disability.
All the video files on the website must have synchronized captions. People with hearing problems or deaf can access these files conveniently.
All the audio files on the website should have synchronized captions to provide access to people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
All web pages should be designed so that they can be viewed using visitors’ web browser and operating system settings for color and font.

About Website Accessibility Policy and Procedures

One must have a written policy on website accessibility.
The website accessibility policy must be posted on the website at a location where it can be easily found.
The procedure should be developed to ensure that content is not added to the website until it has been made accessible.
It should be confirmed that the website manager has checked the code and structure of all new web pages before they are posted.
While adding the PDFs to the website, these should be accessible. Also, the text-based versions of the documents should be accessible at the same time as PDF versions.
Make sure that the in-house and contractor staff has received the information about the website accessibility policy and procedure to confirm the website accessibility.
It should be confirmed that in-house and contractor staff has received appropriate training on how to ensure the accessibility of the website.
The website should have a specific written plan if it contains inaccessible content. Also, it should include timeframes in place to make all of the existing web content accessible.
A complete plan to improve website accessibility should be posted along with invited suggestions for improvement.
The homepage should include easily locatable information that includes contact details like telephone number and email address. This is useful for reporting website accessibility problems and requesting accessibility services with information.
A website should have procedures in place to assure a quick response to the visitors with disabilities who have difficulty in accessing information or services available on the website.
Feedback from people who use a variety of assistive technologies is helpful in ensuring website accessibility. So make sure to ask disability groups representing people to provide feedback on the accessibility of your website.
Testing the website using a product available on the internet is helpful, These tools are of free cost and check the accessibility of a website. They may not identify all accessibility issues and flag issues that are not accessibility problems. However, these are, nonetheless, a helpful way to improve website accessibility.

Checklist of Action Items for Improving the Accessibility of a Website

In addition, while considering the above suggestions, the following checklist initially prepared by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for Federal Agencies provides further guidelines on ways to make websites more accessible for persons with disabilities.

This practical advice, as well as another checklist, are available at:

Satisfying all of these items does not necessarily mean that a website complies with ADA, but it will improve the website’s accessibility and decrease the risk of litigation. Again, an Expert or Web Accessibility Consulting & Services provider should be engaged to conduct a comprehensive review of your website.

Nothing brings you closer to reality than actually facing it. This is the premise of my latest attempt to spread awareness about Web Accessibility.

For better understand, here is a link in which a practical example is shown to make the websites’ user experience better by following the guidelines. Also, it tells the issues affecting various users on the internet with solutions.

You can make your website ADA compliant in an easy way by consulting the professionals, who can do this job effortlessly. Also, you can get a quick website audit from To Be ADA Compliant that offers complete web accessibility consulting & services in California, USA.

Resource: https://dev.to/chinchang/an-interactive-and-practical-introduction-to-web-accessibility-22o1