Skip to main content

Digital Content Standards

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards are the most commonly used standards that are mandated in many countries’ legal requirements. They are all based on 4four design principles: 

  1. PerceivablePerceivable: -The youend haveuser tomust be able to perceive all available content withusing sensestheir theavailable end user possessessenses.

  2. OperableOperable: -The youend haveuser tomust be able to usenavigate alland availableinteract with content with different interfacesand the endinterface userusing canvarious useinput methods. 

  3. UnderstandableUnderstandable: -The youend haveuser tomust be able to understand all available content and predict how to access it withuse the ability the end user hasinterface.

  4. RobustRobust: -The youend haveuser to bemust able to use the content in an interoperable and compatible way with third party technologies the end user can usetechnologies.

WCAG has different versions that appear in various legislations across the world.

  • The UK requires 2.2, which was released in October 2023

  • The EU requires a standard similar to 2.1 (called EN 301 549 Annex A). WCAG 2.1 was released in June 2018

  • The US requires 2.0, which was released in December 2008. WCAG 2.0 is identical to ISO/IEC 40500:2012

GenerallyWhile making new additions, each version generally includes everything from the previous one, and adds extra,version, making them all backwards compatible. Between 2.0 and 2.1 there were 17 additions, and between 2.1 and 2.2 there were 9 additions, and 1 removal (this is Parsing,parsing, which has become obsolete). ThereforeThe youmore couldrecent interpretversion thiscan therefore be interpreted as the newer version therefore being stricter,more stringent, containing higher standards.

The WCAG guidelines are split into 3 levels that increase in strictness,stringency, A, AA and AAA, with A being basic or minimum accessibility with 25 success criteria, AA strong with an additional 13 criteria (38 total) and AAA outstanding with an additional 23 criteria (61 total). AA is the default level that is capturedinvoked in legislative requirements,requirements. and reachingReaching WCAG A will not make a digital resource legally compliant. Some aspects of AAA are not applicable in many situations.

The WCAG standards are splitdivided into 13 guidelines, thatwhich are further splitdivided into more detailed success criteriacriteria. - theThe number of success criteria depends on the WCAG level.

Count

WCAG Guideline Number

WCAG Guideline Title

1

1.1

Text Alternatives

2

1.2

Time Based Media

3

1.3

Adaptable

4

1.4

Distinguishable

5

2.1

Keyboard Accessible

6

2.2

Enough Time

7

2.3

Seizures and Physical Reactions

8

2.4

Navigable

9

2.5

Input Modalities

10

3.1

Readable

11

3.2

Predictable

12

3.3

Input Assistance

13

4.1

Compatible


More information on the success criteria is available here: 

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines - Quick Reference

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines in Plain English

The full details of each version of WCAG are available here:

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 AA 


EN 301 549 Annex A

EN 301 549 Annex A is the standard required to be compliant with EU legislation,legislation and it is roughly similar to WCAG 2.1 AA. It has a broader scope than WCAG (which justonly covers websites), and includes all ICT products and services in the public sector, including specific requirements around web siteswebsites and documents that are both part of the website (HTML or embedded) or downloadable from them (called Non-non-web Documents)documents). 

It includes the same 4 design principles of Perceivable, Operable, Understandable and Robust,Robust and the requirements are mapped to WCAG and directly reference them. This includes the requirements around Non-non-web Documents,documents, which are described separately to the requirements for Websites.websites.

WAI-ARIA

Web Accessibility Initiative - Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) provides an ontology of roles, states,states and properties that define accessible user interface elements and can be used to improve the accessibility and interoperability of web content and applications. Accessibility of web content requires semantic information about widgets, structures,structures and behaviours,behaviours in order to allow assistive technologies to convey appropriate information to persons with disabilities. These semantics are designed to allow an author to properly convey user interface behaviours and structural information to assistive technologies in document-level markup.

WAI-ARIA provides Webweb authors with the following:

  • Roles to describe the type of widget presented, such as “menu”, “treeitem”, “slider”, and “progressbar”

  • Roles to describe the structure of the Webweb page, such as headings,headings and regions

  • Properties to describe the state widgets are in, such as “checked” for a check box, or “readonly” for most form controls

  • Properties to define live regions of a page that are likely to get updates (such as stock quotes)

  • A way to provide keyboard navigation for the Webweb objects and events, such as those mentioned above

CrossRef recommend tagging DOIs with an ARIA label, more information here: Accessibility for Crossref DOI Links





Back to top