What is WCAG?
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the international standard for making web content accessible.
WCAG is published by the W3C and organised around four principles: content must be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. Each guideline has success criteria at levels A, AA and AAA.
Level AA of WCAG 2.1 is the most common legal and contractual target, and underpins regulations such as the European Accessibility Act and many ADA settlements in the United States.
Example
WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.1.1 requires that all functionality is available from a keyboard, so a custom dropdown that only opens on mouse click fails it.
Best practices
- Target WCAG 2.1 AA unless told otherwise
- Automate checks for testable criteria
- Review the rest with keyboard and screen-reader testing
- Keep evidence of testing over time
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