Web accessibility glossary
Essential digital accessibility terms, defined in a sentence or two and linked to the guides.
Definitions
- a11y (accessibility)
- Numeronym for “accessibility”: “a”, 11 letters, “y”.
- RGAA (Référentiel Général d’Amélioration de l’Accessibilité)
- French digital accessibility verification method published by DINUM; version 4.1.2 is in force.
- WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)
- International web content accessibility standards published by the W3C; version 2.2 since October 2023.
- EN 301 549
- European accessibility standard for ICT products and services, which incorporates WCAG; V4.1.1 published September 2026.
- DINUM (Direction interministérielle du numérique)
- French State service that publishes RGAA.
- POUR (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust)
- The four WCAG accessibility principles.
- WAI-ARIA (ARIA)
- W3C specification adding roles, states and properties to HTML for assistive technologies.
- Success criterion (critère de succès)
- A testable WCAG requirement, at level A, AA or AAA.
- Assistive technology (technologie d’assistance)
- Software or hardware helping a person use a computer: screen reader, magnifier, voice control.
- Screen reader (lecteur d’écran)
- Software that renders content as speech or braille, for example NVDA, JAWS or VoiceOver.
- Text alternative (alt text)
- Text that replaces an image for those who cannot see it; the alt attribute in HTML.
- Skip link (lien d’évitement)
- A link at the top of a page that jumps straight to the main content.
- Focus (keyboard focus)
- The element currently active by keyboard, which must remain visible.
- Accessibility statement (déclaration d’accessibilité)
- Public page stating a service’s compliance level, inaccessible content and appeal routes.
- Accessibility overlay
- Automatic widget claiming to fix a site’s accessibility without changing its code; does not guarantee compliance.
- European Accessibility Act (EAA)
- Directive (EU) 2019/882, applicable since 28 June 2025 to certain products and services.
- Opquast
- Organisation and certification for web quality based on a checklist of best practices.
- Core Web Vitals
- Google page-experience metrics: LCP, INP and CLS.