Law & Policy
This U.S. law, enacted in 1990, prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities and ensures equal access to public services—including digital learning platforms.
What is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)?
This type of word, commonly used as shorthand for "accessibility," replaces the 11 letters between the "a" and the "y."
What is a numeronym?
This text-based alternative is essential for describing images so that screen reader users can understand visual content.
What is alternative text (alt text)?
When designing a layout, using left-aligned text instead of center- or right-aligned helps improve this for users with dyslexia or cognitive disabilities.
What is readability (or legibility)?
Designers and developers should always ensure that web content is compatible with this kind of tool, which reads text aloud to users who are blind or have low vision.
What is a screen reader?
Section 508 of this act requires that all electronic and information technology developed, procured, or used by federal agencies be accessible to people with disabilities.
What is the Rehabilitation Act?
This markup framework, abbreviated ARIA, enhances accessibility by adding roles and properties to elements in dynamic web content.
What is Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA)?
Using only color to indicate a correct answer in a quiz excludes learners with this common type of visual impairment.
What is color blindness?
Designing content so that all actions can be completed without a mouse supports users who rely on this input method.
What is keyboard navigation?
This requirement is crucial for input fields so that users with screen readers can know what kind of data is being requested.
What is label or aria-label?
Under this 1975 law, schools must provide students with disabilities a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE), which now extends to accessible digital learning environments.
What is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)?
Often included in VPATs, this three-letter acronym refers to a conformance assessment of how well a digital product meets accessibility standards.
What is an ACR (Accessibility Conformance Report)?
This accessibility requirement provides a text-based representation of spoken dialogue and important sounds.
What are captions (or subtitles)?
Too much animation or movement on a page can overwhelm users with this type of condition related to attention or sensory processing.
What is ADHD (or sensory processing disorder)?
This popular tool, often used by developers to test web accessibility, evaluates whether websites meet WCAG guidelines and other accessibility standards.
What is Axe or Lighthouse?
This civil rights law applies to any school or program receiving federal funding and prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability—including inaccessible course content.
What is Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act?
This group, abbreviated as AT, includes software and devices like screen readers and voice recognition tools that help users interact with technology.
What is Assistive Technology?
Instead of saying "click the green button," it's more inclusive to describe the button using this kind of feature.
What is the label or position (e.g., 'Click the “Submit” button')?
Using clear, descriptive link text like “Download the syllabus” instead of this generic phrase makes navigation easier for screen reader users.
What is "click here"?
In JavaScript, this event handler ensures that all interactive elements are accessible when using only a keyboard.
What is keydown or keyup event (keyboard events)?
EdTech products must meet these guidelines, which define international standards for web accessibility—especially under U.S. laws like Section 508 and the ADA.
What are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)?
This policy acronym represents a coordinated effort across U.S. agencies to improve accessible information and communication technology.
What is ICT (Information and Communication Technology)?
When creating educational PDFs, ensure that they are this—so users can select text, use screen readers, and navigate by headings.
What is accessible or tagged?
The WCAG 2.1 Level AA minimum color contrast ratio of 4.5:1 is based on the relative difference in this property between text and its background.
What is luminance?
This ARIA property helps engineers specify whether an element should be included or excluded from the accessibility tree, improving screen reader performance.
What is `aria-hidden`?