There are various legal frameworks and standards for digital accessibility, including the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which offer critical technical recommendations to ensure the internet is accessible to all, and the European Accessibility Act (EAA), which underscores the importance of accessibility for both businesses and public sector organizations. Digital accessibility positively affects a wide range of audience groups, highlighting that accessible design benefits not only individuals with disabilities but also older adults, those with temporary impairments, and people in difficult environments.
Introduction to WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)
What does WCAG stand for?
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
What is it?
- The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are a series of technical standards designed to make the internet accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities.
- The WCAG are a set of technical recommendations, addressed to technicians who create websites and web apps. They are not an introduction to accessibility, which would start by teaching the why behind making things accessible, rather than the how.
- The WCAG sets guidelines for confirmations such as text, images and sounds, as well as code and tags used to structure and present content on the webpage.
Who creates and manages these standards?
- These guidelines are developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The W3C is a non-profit organisation. It is a gathering of companies who are partnering to make the web more accessible, more secure, more international and more private. The overall goal is to make the web easier to use for everybody.
- The WCAG are part of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), a set of tools and recommendations specifically intended to help make the web more accessible for people with disabilities.
- Apart from the WAI, WC3 is responsible for the creation of tools and guidelines for more general aspects of the web. Their mission is to ensure all the web stays interoperable by using a standardised HTML and CSS format, which W3C developed. Interoperability ensures that a web page created following W3C standards will display and function correctly whether someone is using Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or another browser, and on various devices like desktops, tablets, or smartphones.