The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or WCAG, provide us with technical guidelines for making digital content accessible to users with disabilities.

According to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C),

[WCAG] is developed through the W3C process in cooperation with individuals and organizations around the world, with a goal of providing a single shared standard for web content accessibility that meets the needs of individuals, organizations, and governments internationally. (W3C, "Introduction")

Each page has a section entitled, "Accessibility Guideline." That section is divided into two sections:

• The "What Is It?" section explains the accessibility principle's associated WCAG guideline. Each associated WCAG guideline number and its level of conformance (A, AA, AAA) is located in parenthesis and links out to the corresponding WCAG page.
• The "How-To" section provides step-by-step directions for enacting that principle and ensuring accessibility.

How It's Organized

WCAG 2.1 is organized into four foundational principles of web accessibility, which are further broken down into 13 guidelines. The guidelines provide the basic goals authors should work toward in order to make content accessible to users with different disabilities. Testable success criteria are provided for each guideline.

In order to meet the needs of different groups and different situations, success criteria are broken down into three levels of conformance: A (lowest; required), AA (required), and AAA (highest). Figure 2 shows WCAG organization in a flowchart.

Meeting the Guidelines

For compliance with ADA Title II requirements, you should meet conformance Levels A and AA at a minimum.

Each guideline outlines success criteria and includes further information for both understanding the guidelines, as well as WCAG techniques that provide guidance for web content authors and evaluators on meeting success criteria.

General

WCAG 2.1-Specific

Checklists