The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is a set of guidelines made by individuals from around the world. These guidelines help web developers to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities (Web Accessibility Initiative, 2024). While the EAA doesn’t specifically require you to follow WCAG, it remains one of the best sources for making websites more accessible with its provided examples.

WCAG 2.1 Principles

WCAG 2.1 has 13 guidelines, and each is split into 4 different Principles:

• Perceivable: Info and User Interfaces must be presented in a way that is understandable to the user.
• Operable: User Interfaces and Navigation components must be easily operable by users.
• Understandable: All information given and operations undertaken by the user must be easily understandable.
• Robust: Content must be robust enough that it can interface with multiple different types of Accessibility Tools and other Assistive Technologies.

Each Guideline is graded using the conformance level indicator (AAA/AA/A), and that is used to determine what the overall level of Conformance of the website is, which is the “content that is needed to meet the success criteria” (Web Accessibility Initiative, 2024).

WCAG 2.0, 2.1, 2.2

There are currently three different versions of WCAG, with 2.2 being the most recent version with the most recent changes, mainly regarding having one success criteria (4.1.1 Parsing) now being obsolete. As they are all existing standards, they do not supersede each other. As such, this website chooses to use the WCAG 2.1 guidelines.

How this website is beneficial over the WCAG

This website is beneficial over the WCAG as it provides a more user-friendly interface, with a more understandable layout and design. It also provides a more in-depth explanation of the guidelines, with examples and explanations of how to implement them, something that the WCAG itself does not provide.

WCAG Website

For more information on the WCAG, please visit the official website here