Accessibility Masterlist

Gregg Vanderheiden Ph.D. Editor

This MasterList is designed to serve as a resource for researchers, developers, students, and others interested in understanding or developing products that incorporate one or more of these features.

Each feature or approach is then listed below along with applicable disabilities to each feature are marked with the following icons:

B - Blindness (For our purposes, blindness is defined as no or very low vision - such that text cannot be read at any magnification)
LV - Low Vision
CLL - Cognitive, Language, and Learning Disabilities (including low literacy)
PHY - Physical Disabilities
D/HOH - Deaf and Hard of Hearing

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Click on the ICON above to show only the strategies for that disability group;
Blindness, Low Vision, Cognitive, Physical, and Deaf/Hard of Hearing.

1. Reading Aloud & Highlighting

Read entire text aloud - B, LV, CLL, D/HOH
Read words or blocks of text aloud when highlighted or clicked - LV, CLL
Highlight each word as it is read aloud - LV, CLL
Provide pronunciation help on-demand - CLL
Allow the user to correct text-to-speech mispronunciations and/or retrieve pronunciation corrections from a central source - B, LV, CLL
Use vocal characteristics to present visual formats - B, LV, CLL

2. Reorganizing, Simplifying & Translating

3. Supplementing Page Content

3.1. Word level enhancements and definitions

3.2 Page & Site Level Enhancements

Support collaborative third party markup (customized accessibility scripts for web pages that are designed by and shared among users) - B, LV, CLL, PHY, D/HOH
Provide descriptions of links - B, CLL
Generate site maps - B, CLL
Display breadcrumbs - B, CLL

3.3 Integrated Help & Reminders

Provide cues and prompts to aid browsing; - CLL
Provide contextual help - CLL
Offer real-time assistance - CLL

3.4 Visual Equivalents for Audio Information

Generate or retrieve a text alternative for audio/multimedia content - D/HOH
Provide visual alerts for system sounds - D/HOH
Interactive transcript - D/HOH

3.5 Image Description

Generate or retrieve text descriptions/tags for poorly labeled images - B, LV
Sonify videos or images to provide "synthetic vision" using audio - B, LV

4. Audio Enhancement

Reduce/eliminate background noise - CLL, D/HOH
Adjust pace of speech/audio - CLL, D/HOH
Adjust volume and pitch - CLL, D/HOH

5. Adjustable or Alternate Input Devices

5.1 Keyboard Settings

Delay time before repeat (RepeatKeys) - PHY
Debounce time (BounceKeys) - PHY
Ignore short key presses (Delay time before key acceptance - SlowKeys) - PHY
Keep modifier keys active until another key is pressed (StickyKeys) - PHY

5.2 Alternate Text Entry Methods

Keyboard input: Make all functionality available via the keyboard - B, PHY
Voice input: Make all functionality available via voice control - B, PHY, CLL
Virtual / On-screen keyboard (used with a pointer) - PHY, CLL
Make all functionality available with a limited number of input switches or a reduced keypad - PHY
Accept Morse code inputs from mouse or other input device - PHY
Accept symbol-based input - PHY, CLL
Allow input by Gesture with any body part(s) (hand, facial, posture, etc.) - D/HOH, B

5.3 Mouse/Pointer Settings

Mouse gain / cursor speed - PHY
Double-click speed - PHY
Dwell click - PHY
Cursor size and trails - PHY
Show pointer location on key press - PHY
Highlight/drag without holding button - PHY
Use mouse gestures to perform commands or enter text - PHY
Anti-tremor mouse filtering - PHY

5.4 Alternate Pointing Methods

Support head, any body part -tracking input - PHY
Support joystick-to-mouse input - PHY
Support eye-tracking input - PHY
Keyboard control of mouse pointer (MouseKeys) - PHY

5.5 Alternate Command

Allow control by gesture - B, PHY, CLL
Command line interfaces - B

5.6 Automation of Common Tasks

Provide customizable hotkeys that perform actions with fewer keypresses - PHY, CLL
Provide Macros that re-play a set of pre-recorded actions with a single keypress - PHY, CLL
Provide customizable shortcuts to help users jump to the content they need - PHY, CLL

6. Facilitating Written Communication

Automatically check spelling and grammar - CLL
Assist with homophones (e.g. intelligently choose between "their," "there," and "they're" given the context) - CLL
Automatically predict/complete words and phrases - CLL
Read letters and words aloud as they are typed - B, LV, CLL

7. Error Prevention and Recovery

7.1 General Error Prevention and Recovery

Help minimize errors - B, LV, CLL, PHY, D/HOH
Provide general strategies and contextual aid to safely recover from errors - B, LV, CLL, PHY, D/HOH

7.2 Safe Internet Use

Assist in judging credibility and authenticity of sites - CLL
Maintain a list of trusted sites - CLL

8. Preference & Privacy Features

Automatically determine and adjust settings - B, LV, CLL, PHY, D/HOH
Choose preferred features and adjust settings with a user-friendly feature wizard - B, LV, CLL, PHY, D/HOH
Provide settings and options that are easy to try out and modify (because settings may cause confusion) - B, LV, CLL, PHY, D/HOH

9. Special / General

9.1 Virtual Worlds & Gaming

Use sound proximity/doppler to provide an audio interpretation of visual content and actions - B, LV
Provide audio descriptions of objects in local area (within a selective perception / "virtual horizon") - B, LV, CLL
Provide the ability to discover relationships between items - B, LV

9.2 Accessible Authentication Methods

Provide accessible CAPTCHAs to authenticate access to websites - B, LV, CLL
Enable secure access without a memorized password - CLL

9.3 Real-time Navigation

Provide GPS navigation/wayfinding features on mobile devices - B, LV, CLL

9.4 Context

Using context to modify, adjust, tune any and all of the above - B, LV, CLL, PHY, D/HOH

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