How many A’s does your business need? WCAG Success Criteria Explained!

When first wading into digital accessibility terrain, getting your mind around the full scope of considerations and standards can seem a bit overwhelming. A great first step is understanding the WCAG success criteria, which plays a key role in guiding the implementation of digital accessibility standards for your online business. We’ll explain what these standards are, what your WCAG goals should be, and how to achieve them.

A Quick Digital Accessibility Primer 

In the world of e-commerce, building and maintaining a smartly designed website is a critical first step in attracting, keeping, and expanding a loyal customer base. This is true whether you run a for-profit online business, a non-profit organization, or a strictly informational website. One aspect of an otherwise well-appointed website that almost always goes unaccounted for is the digital accessibility profile. 

Just as people with disabilities have to navigate a brick-and-mortar world that was designed and built for people without disabilities, the same is true in the online world. And just as regulations had to be enacted to enforce accessibility changes to make access to the brick-and-mortar world more fair and equitable, the same is true in the online world. 

The federal accessibility legislation that most people are familiar with is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and it is just as important in regulating digital accessibility as it is in regulating physical accessibility. For physical accessibility, it governs things like wheel-chair accessible entries and store aisles, and for digital accessibility, it governs things like site navigation and usability for those with low or no visibility or hearing.

In conjunction with the ADA, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) serve as the global standard for digital accessibility. ADA regulations are legally enforceable in the United States and result in online businesses facing regulatory fines and lawsuits for compliance failures. However, WCAG standards are not universally binding just yet, though they are considered the gold standard for digital accessibility best practices and serve as a guidepost for where we’re headed.

Check out our blog for more detailed information about the ADA and the assortment of benefits and protections businesses achieve through compliance. Keep reading to learn more about the WCAG success criteria. 

What are the WCAG Levels?

The current version is the WCAG 2.2, though an updated WCAG 3 is in the draft phase, and its adoption is anticipated in the relatively near future. As it stands now, there are three WCAG conformance levels, or success criteria levels, that you need to understand. Let’s take a look!

A Level

This is considered the accessibility entry-level stage. Though there are dozens of success criteria within this level, it is considered the most basic. Achieving this level of compliance is the equivalent of winning a bronze medal- your website is still better than almost every other site in the webscape, but there are still two levels that outperform you in achieving accessibility goals.  

The Level A criteria involve things like:

• Directions or information can’t be conveyed through purely visual cues. For instance, directing a user to “follow the green arrow” or “refer to the information in the circle below,” are examples of descriptors that make content or navigation inaccessible to persons who cannot rely on easy visual distinctions.   

• Purely visual components like images, graphics, and pictures must have textual descriptors. For instance, a picture must include properly coded text that can convey the content and meaning of the image. An example is: 

• “A photograph captures a smiling elementary-aged girl, excitedly skipping through a local carnival scene, holding the string to a helium-filled green balloon that floats just above her head. The child’s mother looks on, smiling. The background is filled with people of all ages walking past or trying their hand at crowd-pleasing carnival games. It appears to be early evening and there is a sense that the fun has just begun for this little girl and her family.” 

• Assistive technologies, like screen readers, must be able to operate across the website. For instance, screen readers must be able to pick up on textual descriptions of visual images and read them aloud.

The A level is the minimum standard for digital accessibility and is considered achievable by all websites.

AA Level

This is considered the accessibility mid-stage. An additional set of slightly more advanced success criteria are included within this level. Achieving this level of compliance is the equivalent of winning a silver medal- your website is notably better than almost every other site in the webscape, and there is only one level that outperforms you in achieving accessibility goals.  

The AA Level criteria involve things like:

• Meeting a minimum standard for color contrast. All foreground and background elements must be comprised of colors that are easily distinguishable from one another in a 4.5 to 1 standard. For instance, websites using nuanced hues of soft pinks in the background and dark pink tex would likely not meet this criterion. By contrast (pun intended), websites using starkly contrasting colors like blue, orange, and white are more likely to meet this criterion if the minimum contrast standard is met. For any website, contrast can be improved through a number of fixes, including adding white, black, or colored borders to textual elements to make them visually distinct from the background.

• Content should be clearly and logically ordered. Random or weaving content should be avoided when possible, and logical and clearly identified flow should be used. For instance, use of formatted headers and subheaders enables assistive screen technologies with reading and presenting information. 

• Navigational consistency should be maintained across the entire platform. For instance, search fields, navigational menus, “skip to main content” links, home “buttons,” etc., should all be placed in the same spot across pages so that users who are blind or have low vision can easily track and find these options as they navigate the site.

The AA level is an advanced standard for digital accessibility and is considered achievable by most websites.

Level AAA

This is considered the highest accessibility standard. An additional set of more advanced success criteria are included within this level. Achieving this level of compliance is the equivalent of winning a gold medal- your website is markedly better than every other site in the webscape, and there are no levels that outperform you in achieving accessibility goals.  

The AAA Level criteria involve things like:

• Meeting a minimum standard for color contrast. All foreground and background elements must be comprised of colors that are easily distinguishable from one another in a 7 to 1 standard. This is an increase in the contrast ratio from the prior level.  

• ASL versions of video content should be included. In the same way that the visual elements of videos are inaccessible to blind and low-vision users, the audio elements are inaccessible to users who are deaf or hard of hearing. To ensure universal content accessibility, videos of American Sign Language interpretations should be available for all video content (either embedded in a separate window in the video or as a separate video).

• There are no time limits for user tasks. For instance, if a user is attempting to order tickets to an event or accomplish some other task, no time-dependent changes should be triggered, causing the user to lose progress mid-task, have to start over, get routed away from the check-out, or lose out on opportunities.

The AAA level is the most advanced standard for digital accessibility and is not considered achievable for most websites.

What grade does your business need to succeed?

As the owner, manager, or designer of a website (for-profit, non-profit, or informational), you will be happy to know that the AA Level is considered the appropriate grade for most websites. 

While the AAA Level is technically the gold standard of digital accessibility, it represents a highly nuanced implementation of accessibility metrics that are understood to be outside the realm of possibility for many websites. If this standard were enforced, there is a likelihood that no website could even attempt to comply despite the threat of civil or regulatory consequences. 

Because of this, and with a healthy embrace of doing the greatest good for the most people, the accepted standard is an AA Level under the WCAG, which conforms to the standard under the ADA. Accordingly, the Web Accessibility Initiative, the global initiative responsible for developing the WCAG, recommends that every website adhere to all compliance requirements of the A and AA levels, which means achieving AA compliance. Similarly, the ADA regulates websites to the WCAG AA Level. 

How AllyADA Can Help

As a digital accessibility auditing service, we help businesses meet ADA and WCAG standards, meeting all AA-level success criteria. Importantly, the quality, consistency, and impact of our service drives superior outcomes. While our competitors rely entirely on inadequate software to scan a website for accessibility failures, our team of CPACC-certified accessibility professionals uses software as one of many tools for assessment. Along with software, we also perform manual testing of every site, using the real-world experience of users with disabilities to guide our feedback and drive our advanced fixes. 

We invite you to check out our resources for detailed information on embracing accessibility compliance as a wildly beneficial business move. 

Call or contact us today to learn more or get started!