Assistive technologies are products used by people with disabilities to help accomplish tasks that they cannot accomplish otherwise or could not do easily otherwise.
ARIA
Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) is a W3C protocol for enhancing and supporting accessibility of scripted and dynamic content. ARIA provides a common, interoperable method of relaying the information to assistive technologies. ARIA supports assistive technologies to work successfully with JavaScript content such as tabs, accordions, carousels, date-pickers, sliders etc.
Breadcrumbs
A trail of links most often found at the top of a piece of content within a web page showing the location of the page in the website enabling the user to navigate to pages above.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
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. The term cascading refers to the possibility of using more than one style sheet in the same document, with different levels of importance. Style sheets allow the user to change the appearance of hundreds of web pages by changing just one file.
CAPTCHA
A way of checking if a form is being submitted by a human or a machine. This is done by entering some stylized but legible text or numbers displayed on the screen.
Frames
A frame 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.
HTML
Hyper Text Markup Language (html) is plain text that includes a variety of tags defining the structure of the document and allowing documents to include headings, paragraphs, images, links, lists, tables, and other features. The language is used to create World Wide Web pages.
Hyperlinks
Certain underlined words that lead to another location either inside or outside the web page with more information about the subject when clicked on. Ted Nelson invented the term.
Image map
An image map is an image that has either a region or regions that act as a hyperlink. For example, an image of the province of Quebec could serve as an image map for any information related to Quebec. 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 World Wide Web scripting language from Netscape Communications that is popular for its simplicity.
Multi-platform
Usable by several types of computers or operating systems such as MacIntosh or Windows programs.
Plug-In
An application that is downloaded and activated through a web browser. Examples include Acrobat Reader, Quicktime, Real Player, and the Macromedia Flash player.
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 to speech synthesis for audio output.
Session
The time a user visiting a website is assigned by a server is a session. In this way, a website can keep track of stored items such as shopping carts. If a person stays idle on a website for too long, the session expires and the website considers the person as a new visitor.
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
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 tools on the Internet that provide the service of checking an HTML page and identifying any conformance problems including accessibility issues.
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 2.0 define how to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities. Accessibility involves a wide range of disabilities, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, language, learning, and neurological disabilities. WCAG 2.0 is a work in progress as part of the W3C process.
WRI
The Web Renewal Initiative is a multi-year project to enhance the effectiveness and usability of Government of Canada (GC) websites. The outcome of this initiative is a single integrated point of entry into the GC Web presence in Canada.ca with Service Canada functioning as its Principal Publisher.