Glossary

This glossary provides brief definitions and explanations of terms used in the Mobile Accessibility Guidelines.

Descriptions of the four types of impairment are also included below.

  • Assistive technology - a term for a range of equipment, devices, and software and that is used to increase, maintain or improve someone’s functional capability. This includes screen readers, braille displays, switch devices, joysticks, eye-tracking, scanners, magnifiers and voice control.

  • Cue - an indicator or affordance that informs the user that they can and should interact in a particular way.

  • Dynamic content - content that changes and updates based on user interactions, timing, or other parameters.

  • Embedded media - self-contained external content that is embedded and included within a page or screen, such as a video player or game.

  • Focus - indicates the component of a user interface (UI) currently selected to receive input.

  • Interactive media - content that requires and responds to active participation, such as a game, quiz or widget.

  • Narrative - the editorial story within interactive content, such as games, which do not include incidental noises or control buttons.

  • Platform - the combination of hardware device, operating system and software being used to view content.

  • Screen reader - software, sometimes native to a device, that interprets what is displayed on a screen and re-presents it to the user via text-to-speech, sound icons, or a Braille device; helpful for vision impaired or cognitively impaired users.

  • Switch device - custom control hardware combined with software that interprets input as either keyboard or mouse controls; necessary for users with complex motor impairments.

Cognitive impairment

Any situation that affects how a person mentally perceives, understands or processes information. This could be due to:

  • intoxication or tiredness
  • headache, migraine, sleep disorder or other illness
  • injury, substance abuse, concussion, amnesia or other brain damage
  • neurodivergent conditions such as autism, ADHD and dyslexia
  • mental health and memory conditions such as anxiety, PTSD or dementia
  • or learning and developmental delays.

Motor impairment

Any situation that prevents a person from physically interacting freely. This could be due to:

  • holding or carrying something
  • hands that are too large or small for the input control
  • illness or injury that restricts movement or reduces muscle control
  • conditions such as arthritis, Parkinson’s, hemiplegia, or cerebral palsy that can affect movement or muscle control
  • paralysis of limbs or body
  • or full or partial absence of limbs

Hearing impairment

Any situation that prevents a person from fully perceiving something audible. This could be due to:

  • other noise or a need to mute the volume
  • illness or injury that affects hearing
  • partial hearing loss that requires a hearing aid
  • reduced or restricted hearing that may be muffled or miss certain frequencies
  • conditions such as tinnitus where noise is heard though absent from external sound
  • or or deafness where little or no sound is perceived

Vision impairment

Any situation that prevents a person from fully perceiving something visual. This could be due to:

  • bright light creating glare or reflections on a screen
  • illness or injury that affects vision
  • short/long sightedness or other conditions that require spectacles
  • colour blindness where one or more colours are perceived differently or not at all
  • low vision that cannot be corrected only with spectacles
  • conditions such as macular degeneration or cataracts where some areas of vision are obscured or blurred
  • or blindness where little or no visual information is perceived