What is Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

About - What is Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Introduction

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2 is developed through the W3C process in cooperation with individuals and organizations around the world, with a goal of providing a single shared standard for web content accessibility that meets the needs of individuals, organizations, and governments internationally.

The WCAG documents explain how to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities. Web “content” generally refers to the information in a web page or web application, including:

• natural information such as text, images, and sounds
• code or markup that defines structure, presentation, etc.

What is Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

Who WCAG is for

WCAG is for those who want a technical standard. It is not an introduction to accessibility.

Well, WCAG is primarily intended for:

• Web content developers (page authors, site designers, etc.)
• Web authoring tool developers
• Web accessibility evaluation tool developers
• Others who want or need a standard for web accessibility, including for mobile accessibility
• To meet the needs of others — including policy makers, managers, and researchers — there are many different WAI Resources.

The WCAG 2.2 has 13 guidelines. The guidelines are organized under 4 principles: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.

For each guideline, there are testable success criteria. The success criteria are at three levels: A, AA, and AAA.

The success criteria are what determine “conformance” to WCAG. That is, in order to meet WCAG, the content needs to meet the success criteria. Details are in the Conformance section of WCAG.

For a short summary of the WCAG 2 guidelines, see WCAG 2 at a Glance.

WCAG 2.0 is ISO/IEC 40500

WCAG 2.0 is approved as an ISO standard: ISO/IEC 40500:2012. ISO/IEC 40500 is exactly the same as the original WCAG 2.0, which is introduced above along with supporting resources.

The content of ISO/IEC 40500 is freely available from www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20; it is available for purchase from the ISO catalogue .

Benefits of WCAG 2.0 as an ISO standard are summarized in ISO in the FAQ. More information on W3C and the ISO process is in the W3C PAS FAQ.

W3C submitted WCAG 2.2 to ISO. It will likely be after June 2025 before the ISO process is complete.

Who develops WCAG

The WCAG technical documents are developed by the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AG WG) (formerly the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group), which is part of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

WAI updates Techniques for WCAG 2 and Understanding WCAG 2 periodically. We welcome comments and submission of new techniques.

Opportunities for contributing to WCAG and other WAI work are introduced in Participating in WAI.