aid: wcag name: WCAG description: >- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are a set of international standards published by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) for making web content accessible to people with disabilities. WCAG covers a wide range of recommendations across four principles (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust), with conformance levels A, AA, and AAA. WCAG 2.2 (ISO/IEC 40500:2025) is the current standard, while WCAG 3.0 is in active development targeting broader coverage of websites, mobile apps, VR environments, and digital documents. type: Index url: https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/ tags: - Accessibility - W3C - WCAG - Web Standards - Disability - Inclusive Design created: '2025' modified: '2026-05-03' specificationVersion: '0.19' apis: - aid: wcag:wcag-2-2 name: WCAG 2.2 description: >- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2, the current stable version and ISO/IEC 40500:2025 standard. Introduces 9 new success criteria beyond WCAG 2.1, including focus appearance, dragging movements, and consistent help. Organized into four principles: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust (POUR). humanURL: https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/ tags: - WCAG 2.2 - Accessibility - Web Standards - ISO properties: - type: Documentation url: https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/ title: WCAG 2.2 Specification - type: Documentation url: https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/quickref/ title: WCAG 2.2 Quick Reference - type: Documentation url: https://github.com/w3c/wcag title: WCAG GitHub Repository - type: JSONSchema url: json-schema/wcag-success-criterion-schema.json title: Success Criterion Schema - type: JSONSchema url: json-schema/wcag-conformance-claim-schema.json title: Conformance Claim Schema - type: JSONStructure url: json-structure/wcag-success-criterion-structure.json title: Success Criterion Structure - type: JSONStructure url: json-structure/wcag-conformance-claim-structure.json title: Conformance Claim Structure - aid: wcag:wcag-3-0 name: WCAG 3.0 description: >- W3C Accessibility Guidelines 3.0 (working draft), expanding scope beyond web content to cover mobile apps, VR, authoring tools, and digital documents. Introduces outcome-based testing and a new scoring model. Working Draft published January 2026; Candidate Recommendation targeted Q4 2027. humanURL: https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/wcag3-intro/ tags: - WCAG 3.0 - Accessibility - Web Standards - Working Draft properties: - type: Documentation url: https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/wcag3-intro/ title: WCAG 3.0 Introduction - type: Documentation url: https://w3c.github.io/wcag3/guidelines/ title: WCAG 3.0 Editor Draft - type: Documentation url: https://github.com/w3c/wcag3 title: WCAG 3.0 GitHub Repository - aid: wcag:wai-aria name: WAI-ARIA description: >- Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.2 specification providing semantic roles, states, and properties for accessible user interface components. Includes API mappings for browsers and assistive technologies. humanURL: https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/ tags: - WAI-ARIA - Accessibility - Semantic Web - User Interface properties: - type: Documentation url: https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/ title: WAI-ARIA Specification - type: Documentation url: https://www.w3.org/TR/aria-in-html/ title: ARIA in HTML - type: Documentation url: https://github.com/w3c/aria-practices title: ARIA Authoring Practices GitHub - aid: wcag:act-rules name: Accessibility Conformance Testing (ACT) Rules description: >- ACT Rules provide machine-executable rules for testing WCAG 2.x conformance, enabling consistent automated and manual accessibility evaluation across tools and methodologies. humanURL: https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/act/ tags: - ACT Rules - Accessibility Testing - Automated Testing - WCAG properties: - type: Documentation url: https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/act/ title: ACT Rules Overview - type: Documentation url: https://act-rules.github.io/ title: ACT Rules Community common: - type: Website url: https://www.w3.org/WAI/ title: W3C Web Accessibility Initiative - type: Documentation url: https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/ title: W3C Accessibility Standards Overview - type: GitHubOrganization url: https://github.com/w3c title: W3C GitHub Organization - type: Tools url: https://www.w3.org/WAI/test-evaluate/tools/list/ title: Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools List - type: Tools url: https://github.com/w3c/wcag-em-report-tool title: WCAG-EM Report Tool - type: Vocabulary url: vocabulary/wcag-vocabulary.yml title: WCAG Vocabulary - type: JSON-LD url: json-ld/wcag-context.jsonld title: WCAG JSON-LD Context - type: Features data: - name: Four Accessibility Principles (POUR) description: >- WCAG 2.x guidelines are organized around four principles: Perceivable (information must be presentable to users), Operable (UI must be navigable), Understandable (content must be comprehensible), and Robust (content must be interpretable by assistive technologies). - name: Three Conformance Levels description: >- Success criteria are classified as Level A (minimum), Level AA (standard), and Level AAA (enhanced), enabling graduated implementation roadmaps. - name: Testable Success Criteria description: >- Each guideline contains specific, testable success criteria that provide a clear pass/fail basis for accessibility evaluation and legal compliance. - name: ACT Rules Integration description: >- Machine-executable ACT Rules enable consistent automated testing of WCAG conformance across multiple evaluation tools. - name: Techniques and Failures Documentation description: >- Extensive documentation of sufficient techniques, advisory techniques, and common failures for implementing and evaluating each success criterion. - name: WCAG 3.0 Outcome-Based Model description: >- WCAG 3.0 introduces a scoring-based conformance model with outcomes replacing binary pass/fail for more nuanced accessibility assessment. - type: UseCases data: - name: Legal Compliance description: >- Organizations use WCAG 2.1/2.2 Level AA to meet legal accessibility requirements including ADA, Section 508, EN 301 549, and AODA. - name: Automated Accessibility Testing description: >- Development teams integrate ACT Rules into CI/CD pipelines to automatically catch WCAG violations in web applications. - name: Screen Reader Compatibility description: >- WAI-ARIA roles and properties enable web applications to communicate semantic structure and state to screen readers and assistive technologies. - name: Accessibility Auditing description: >- Accessibility specialists use WCAG criteria as the evaluation framework for manual and automated accessibility audits. - name: Inclusive Design description: >- Design and engineering teams reference WCAG guidelines during the design phase to build accessibility in from the start rather than retrofitting. - type: Integrations data: - name: axe-core description: >- Popular open-source accessibility testing engine that maps test rules to WCAG success criteria. - name: WAVE description: >- Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool that visually highlights WCAG issues on web pages. - name: Lighthouse description: >- Google Lighthouse includes accessibility audits mapped to WCAG criteria. - name: NVDA and JAWS description: >- Screen readers that implement WAI-ARIA API mappings to communicate accessible rich web content to blind and low-vision users. - name: ISO/IEC 40500 description: >- WCAG 2.2 is identical to ISO/IEC 40500:2025, enabling reference in international procurement and regulatory requirements. maintainers: - FN: Kin Lane email: kin@apievangelist.com