What is WCAG?
The WCAG are not law, they are a recommendation of the World Wide Web Consortium. They sit under four principles: perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. Below those hang the success criteria, each worded so that whether it is met can be answered with yes or no. Version 2.2 contains 97 of them.
The three levels are not quality grades, they are effort classes. Level A is the floor and includes captions for prerecorded media as criterion 1.2.2 and text alternatives for non-text content as 1.1.1. Level AA is the usual target and holds, among others, the minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 as criterion 1.4.3. Level AAA is not achievable across all content, and the W3C itself does not recommend it as a general target.
What matters in practice is the role the WCAG play in law, which is an indirect one. Neither the German Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz nor its implementing regulation names them; the regulation works with functional performance criteria instead. The route from there to the WCAG runs through the harmonised European standards the act refers to.
Why does WCAG matter?
As a testing frame the WCAG are hard to beat, because they break the vague goal of accessibility into individually checkable points. As an argument towards a managing director they work poorly, because they say nothing about effect. Anyone who needs both uses the WCAG for testing and justifies the work with what the additional text on the page does.
WCAG in practice
- 01An editorial team checks new posts against a short list drawn from criteria 1.1.1, 1.2.2 and 1.4.3 instead of opening the full catalogue.
- 02An agency commits to level AA in the proposal and names the exceptions it cannot reach explicitly in the text.
- 03An automated report flags missing alternative text and the editors write it, rather than filling it with the file name.
