WCAG: The Roadmap to Web Accessibility [2024]

WCAG, an acronym for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, represents a set of recommendations aimed at improving web accessibility. These recommendations are internationally recognized and developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

What Is WCAG, and Why Does it Matter?

In short, these recommendations or guidelines are the global standard when it comes to web accessibility - achieving and maintaining it. They strive to help webmasters make all types of digital content more accessible for people with disabilities, but also for all types of users regardless of their devices or other limitations.

For businesses, achieving web accessibility is paramount - to ensure alignment with the mentioned guidelines and make sure that everyone has access to the business’ online store, products, or services.

As such, if you want to learn more about the topic and learn how to make a website WCAG compliant, read on! We’ve prepared the most comprehensive WCAG compliance guide!

The goal of WCAG is to make web content more accessible for people with disabilities and any type of users overall. WCAG was first introduced in 1999 and marked as “1.0”, paving the way for better, more expansive, and inclusive versions of WCAG web accessibility guidelines - 2.1, 2.1, etc.

The foundation and further development of the WCAG stand on one of Tim Berners-Lee’s beliefs, namely the fact that the power of the web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.

The primary purpose of the guidelines, besides what has been described above, is to offer web developers and content creators a comprehensive framework that would assist them in making sure that all digital assets they create are accessible to all individuals - regardless of impairment and disability.

Naturally, WCAG compliance has its benefits, including, but not limited to, legal compliance, enhanced user experience, and broader audience reach. Implementing WCAG ensures compliance with the ADA act ( Americans with Disabilities Act), with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act , as well as with the European Accessibility ACT (EAA ), the latter being actually a law that requires digital experiences to be accessible to people with disabilities (in the EU).

As a webmaster and web designer , one must acknowledge the fact that WCAG enhances user experience by improving navigation and usability, by ensuring faster loading times, and via compatibility with various devices and assistive technologies. At the same time, certain WCAG recommendations boost overall SEO efforts, such as alt text for images.

Last but not least, it is worth mentioning that roughly 61 million Americans live with a disability but can easily engage with websites that are WCAG-compliant.

Overall, WCAG means more than just meeting legal requirements. It can be seen as a strategic approach businesses can employ to improve user experience, engage broader audiences, and pretty much promote business success, while also demonstrating digital inclusivity.

Understanding WCAG Compliance Levels

There are three levels of compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines - A, AA, and AAA. Each level is built upon the previous one, increasing the WCAG web accessibility for users with disabilities.

Here is a detailed breakdown of each compliance level which can help you with your WCAG checklist 2024:

• Level A (Basic) - consists of a total of 25 success criteria and is designed to be the easiest to meet without significant impact on website design or structure. The A level addresses critical issues that can prevent users with disabilities from accessing digital content, such as the insertion of text alternatives for non-text content, ensuring that the content is navigable without a mouse (with a keyboard), and avoiding content identification based on colors only;
• Level AA (Mid-Level) - consists of a total of 38 success criteria (13 additional compared to A level) and requires more commitment and effort to implement. In many jurisdictions throughout the world, level AA is considered legally acceptable, referring to accessibility guidelines overall, emphasizing the fact that it offers, generally, extended accessibility to disabled or impaired users. Some success criteria for the AA level include sufficient color contrast, captions for live audio and video content, and consistent navigation patterns across the entire website;
• Level AAA (High-Level) - consists of a total of 61 success criteria (23 additional compared to the first two levels) and provides the optimal level of accessibility. Naturally, the AAA level is not always possible or practical for all types of content as it includes success criteria such as providing sign language interpretation for all audio content, ensuring higher color contrast ratios, and offering context-sensitive help for complex interactions.

In short, the A level ensures basic functionality and accessibility for digital content, and the AA level is considered the industry standard for most websites. AAA level is the best but obviously challenging to implement from a webmaster’s and web designer’s point of view.

Key Principles of WCAG (POUR Framework)

Success criteria and basic recommendations aside, the core, or better said, the fundamental principles of WCAG web accessibility are represented by the POUT framework, which refers to perceivability, operability, understandability, and robustness. As such, according to the mentioned framework, web content must be:

• Perceivable - implies that users must be able to perceive the information using one or more of their senses (one example would be alt text for images);
• Operable - implies that users must be able to control UI (User Interface ) elements through various input methods (including, but not limited to mouse, keyboard, controllers, and maybe even voice activation);
• Understandable - implies that web content must be comprehensible to all of its users (clear, direct, concise instructions);
• Robust - implies that the content must be developed via various web standards that have been adapted for compatibility across different browsers and devices (screen readers, for example).

Step-by-Step Roadmap to WCAG Compliance

As such, how to make a website WCAG compliant?

We’ve prepared a step-by-step web accessibility roadmap that any webmaster or web designer can follow in order to ensure WCAG compliance. It consists of 5 steps, as follows:

• Step 1: Audit Your Current Website

You can rely on automated tools, such as Axe or WAVE, to scan your website for common accessibility problems. You can also perform manual checks and personally assess usability and compatibility with various assistive technologies. During the audit, make sure to analyze color contrast, navigation structure, as well as form accessibility.

• Step 2: Understand Accessibility Gaps

After completing the audit, analyze all the results and identify the most common accessibility issues on your website. For example, look for missing alt text on images, insufficient color contrasts, form accessibility, as well as erroneous heading structure (that might be illogical and cause improper navigation).

• Step 3: Implement Accessibility Features

After identifying the issues, you can address them by implementing the proper accessibility features. Following the examples above, make sure to add descriptive alt text to all images, especially informative ones, and then optimize heading structure to ensure proper content hierarchy, improve form accessibility (labels, instructions, error messages), make sure all interactive elements on the website are keyboard accessible, and implement proper color contrast ratios throughout the website.

• Step 4: Test for Accessibility

Testing for accessibility is similar to auditing your website for accessibility. You can rely on automated tools, as well as on manual testing to verify and ensure compliance. If possible, you can include users with disabilities or impairments in the testing process to gain effective insights. Make sure to also test across different devices and browsers and check if your digital content respects the POUR framework.

• Step 5: Maintain Ongoing Accessibility

Maintenance is essential, as with most things. As such, you’ll have to schedule regular accessibility audits to make sure no new issues remain unsolved. Webmasters can also implement accessibility checks during development or content creation workflows. In the same tune, you could also train your team to ensure understandability regarding accessibility issues and features.

Of course, you should also stay up-to-date with the WCAG updates.

If you choose to follow the web accessibility roadmap above, you will systematically maintain WCAG compliance across your website. Ultimately, this means a more inclusive and accessible website for all your users.

Tools and Resources for WCAG Compliance

There are several tools you can use to automatically test your website for WCAG compliance. Here are the most popular ones:

• WAVE (Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool) - a comprehensive suite of evaluation tools developed by WebAIM to help webmasters ensure content accessibility. The tool has browser extensions for the most popular browsers, visual feedback via indicators and icons, means of identification of Section 508 and WCAG 2.1 compliance (and respective issues), as well as the ability to test pages that are stored locally or password-protected (before launch, for example);
• Axe Accessibility Checker - advanced content accessibility testing toolkit developed by Deque Systems. It can be integrated seamlessly into the development process. Key characteristics include the ability to ensure compliance with Section 508, WCAG 2.0, as well as EN 301 549, access to Axe-Core libraries (open-source accessibility ruleset), browser extensions, as well as integration for continuous deployment);
• Google Lighthouse - an open-source tool that provides automated auditing for web pages. Auditing features include content accessibility testing - the function is integrated into Chrome DevTools, rounds up an accessibility score (based on WCAG 2.1, Level AA), provides suggestions for fixing issues, and generally covers common accessibility issues;
• NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access) - free screen reader that is crucial for testing how exactly visually impaired users experience websites and digital content. NVDA provides webmasters with real-world testing of website navigation, content comprehension, the possibility to test on Windows devices, and Speech Viewer features, among others.

Common WCAG Violations and How to Fix Them

WCAG violations are common issues that can hinder website usability for people with disabilities or impairments. Next, we’ll highlight the most common issues, as well as actionable tips to quickly and efficiently resolve them:

• Missing alternative text for images - 54.5% of homepages encounter this issue, and you can easily fix it by adding descriptive alt text to all meaningful images (concise, informative descriptions; empty alt attributes for decorative images; avoid phrases like image/picture of);
• Non-descriptive link text - vague link text (click here/learn more ) is actually a common accessibility error, as it doesn’t provide any useful context for users. To fix it, you should use descriptive, specific link text that indicates the destination of the link, ensure that the link makes sense if taken out of context, and use link text that provides more context ( Click here to read the blog);
• Inadequate color contrast - 81% of all home pages are affected by this WCAG issue. Improper color contrast makes it difficult for users with visual impairments to read a webpage. To solve this, ensure a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 (3:1 for large text). It is recommended to avoid using only color to convey information to users;
• Poor keyboard navigation - to fix this, you should make sure that all interactive website elements can be accessed via a keyboard. You can also provide focus indicators to highlight keyboard navigation capabilities, implement logical tab order for form fields/interactive elements, and also use native HTML controls when and if possible.

Other common issues are the lack of form labels, empty buttons, and missing document languages. Attributes (<label>, <html lang=”en”>) and descriptive text can help solve the issues.

Legal Implications of Non-Compliance

WCAG non-compliance can lead to quite serious legal consequences, especially for organizations that are under the ADA and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Financial penalties, reputational damage, and mandatory website redesign are some of the main consequences of non-compliance.

If you fail to comply with ADA, Title III - referring to WCAG compliance -, you can become the target of the roughly 3000 yearly lawsuits filed due to non-compliance. Then, non-compliance with Section 508 can lead to fines of up to $55,000 for the first violation, and up to $110,000 for subsequent violations.

It is worth mentioning that organizations receiving any type of federal funding may become ineligible to further receive such funding if they are found to be WCAG (Section 508) non-compliant.

• Netflix, sometime in the past, didn’t provide closed captioning for all the content it streamed. The National Association of the Deaf sued Netflix and eventually reached a settlement - $775,000 in legal fees and damages, and the obligation for Netflix to implement closed captioning for all streaming content within two years of the case resolution;
• CVS also got sued because of a non-compliant website design. The company had to pay $250,000 to all affected customers and was forced to redesign its website and obviously respect WCAG;
• Domino’s Pizza used to have a website and app riddled with accessibility issues that made it difficult for Guillermo Robles to order from it (using screen-reading software). The court ruled, like in the previous cases, that Domino’s app was covered by the ADA and, subsequently, that non-compliance with the WCAG implied law violations. The plaintiff received $4,000 in damages, and Domino’s had to fix all of its accessibility issues.

Final Thoughts: Achieving WCAG Compliance in 2024

As a business, regardless of what products or services you sell online, you must ensure WCAG compliance - not only to make it easier for users to become customers but also to promote and align with ethical business practices.

Naturally, the ethical standpoint is the priority. Everyone, regardless of impairment and disability, should be able to access most, if not all, forms of digital content. What stands between them and this accessibility are the webmasters, web designers, and business owners who decide to adopt and implement WCAG.

A proactive business owner who takes the necessary steps to ensure compliance and inclusivity is a business owner who paves their own way toward online success!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

• What does WCAG stand for?

WCAG stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines , which outline standards and success criteria for making web content accessible to all users, regardless of impairment or disability.

• What level of WCAG compliance is required by law?

The grand majority of regulations referring to or implying WCAG compliance require Level AA. Level AA is considered to be the industry standard and easily achievable when it comes to web content accessibility.

• Can small businesses achieve WCAG compliance?

Small businesses can achieve WCAG compliance by implementing basic accessibility features in compliance with Level AA success criteria.

• Are there penalties for not being WCAG compliant?

WCAG non-compliance can lead to legal actions, fines, and reputational damage.

• How often should I audit my website for accessibility?

WCAG compliance audits should be performed annually or whenever you make major updates on your website - such as changing the theme, rebranding, changing the color palette, and other similar updates.