accessibility glossary

Low Vision

Low vision describes significant visual impairment that is not fully correctable with glasses or contact lenses, ranging from blurred central vision to severely reduced peripheral or overall vision.

People with low vision use a range of strategies and tools online, including browser and operating-system zoom, dedicated screen magnifier software, high-contrast or dark display modes, and customized text sizing, often in combination. This is why WCAG requires that text can be resized up to 200% and that layouts reflow cleanly at high zoom, rather than assuming a fixed, small viewing size.

Low vision is far more common than total blindness; the World Health Organization estimates it affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide, which makes it one of the highest-impact groups for basic accessibility practices like sufficient contrast and resizable text.

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