Frameworks & Standards
Web Content Accessibility GuidelinesWCAG
The W3C's international guidelines for making web content usable by people with disabilities — organised around perceivable, operable, understandable and robust content, with conformance levels A, AA and AAA.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and define testable success criteria for accessible digital content: text alternatives for images, sufficient colour contrast, full keyboard operability, visible focus, understandable navigation and content that assistive technologies can interpret reliably. Criteria are grouped under four principles — perceivable, operable, understandable, robust — and three conformance levels, of which Level AA is the benchmark used by most laws and procurement rules worldwide.
WCAG 2.2, published in 2023, is the current version; it added criteria on focus visibility, dragging alternatives, target sizes and accessible authentication. In the European Union, WCAG underpins the harmonised standard EN 301 549 and, through it, the European Accessibility Act and the Web Accessibility Directive for public-sector bodies. For organisations working with governments and development institutions, WCAG conformance is increasingly a procurement requirement rather than a voluntary extra.