Acronyms, Numeronyms, and Keywords in Web Accessibility

Join Natalie and Natalie in the 13th episode of the AAArdvark Accessibility Podcast as they demystify the myriad of acronyms, numeronyms, and keywords you encounter in accessibility. Topics include WCAG, ARIA, live regions, and the importance of semantic HTML. The episode also touches on assistive technologies and accessibility laws like Section 508. Add to your accessibility knowledge with a speed round of common numeronyms and crucial keywords that lay the foundation for accessible web design.

Natalie G: Hello, everybody, and welcome to the AAArdvark Accessibility Podcast. This is our 13th episode, and here with us today is,

Natalie M: Natalie MacLees.

Natalie G: And she’s an accessibility expert, and I am Natalie G, the other Natalie, an accessibility novice. And in our 13th installment, we are going to talk about acronyms, numeronyms, and keywords in accessibility. Cause if there’s anything you’ll notice once you start learning is that there’s a lot of acronyms and a lot of keywords and a lot of things from like coding backgrounds and you may not understand all of them, but we’re going to cover them all today.

Natalie M: All!? That’s ambitious.

Natalie G: A lot of them

Natalie M: I bet we forget something.

Natalie G: Yeah. If we

Natalie M: forget anything,

There’s just so many.

Natalie G: leave a comment in the description below. What? Leave a comment in the comments below. Alright, so do you want to start with the one overwhelming, most commonly used, everywhere you see the accessibility, this is mentioned too, acronym.

Natalie M: Yeah, WCAG or WCAG or WCAG, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. So a set of around 80, I think, total success criteria that basically lay out how to build an accessible website or web application.

Natalie G: It covers a lot of different tests, different standards, different rules you should follow for web content.

Natalie M: Yes.

Natalie G: And it’s everywhere because…

Natalie M: It applies to all websites.

Natalie G: Yeah. Applies to all websites and it’s the most commonly enforced across laws.

Natalie M: Yes, most of the accessibility laws around the world are either directly say to implement WCAG or indirectly have a set of rules based on WCAG.

Natalie G: Yeah. And there’s different versions of WCAG too.

Natalie M: There are 1.0, which is very old, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, and they’re working on 3. Yes.

Natalie G: And, there’s different levels of WCAG.

Natalie M: Yes, A, AA, AAA. A being the easiest one to achieve, but also the least accommodating, and then AAA being the most accommodating and the most difficult to achieve. Most of the time, people are going to try to comply with AA, so just that sweet spot right in the middle, and most of the laws refer to WCAG AA.

Natalie G: And funny enough, the A’s are not actually acronyms.

Natalie M: No, they’re not. They’re just letter grades.

Natalie G: A, 2A, and 3A.

Natalie M: Yes.

Natalie G: And they’re not acronyms in AAArdvark either, in the name AAArdvark.

Natalie M: No, they’re no...