Ultimate Guide to WCAG 3.0 Web Accessibility
As an entrepreneur, you will want everyone to visit your store and it to be accessible to even those with disabilities, like visitors in wheelchairs and to the blind or deaf. This is a noble and essential thought all store owners should have, including online store owners. Website owners, too, should ensure that any probable visitor can visit and access their store, including users with motor, visual or sensory problems. This includes ensuring everyone can access, understand and navigate through your website format, structure, navigation, visuals, and written content. This is easier said than done, which is why you have the web content accessibility guidelines WCAG 3.0 with a structured content guideline. The WCAG standard has been updated in the past decade with significant improvements through expert usability testing, and this is WCAG 3.0. This new conformance model not only improves web accessibility for disabled visitors but also provides information website owners and content creators can understand. And this is where we can help. adasitecompliance.com is the number one source for ADA website compliance. We can help ensure your website’s digital content meets the minimum conformance level and maintains neuro, visual, audio, motor, and cognitive accessibility!
Ultimate Guide to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
There are four main principles to follow to create an accessible website, and they are:
Perceivable
Your website is perceivable when visitors can perceive and understand the information and content on your website. Perceive means seeing with one’s eyes and letting users with visual problems use screen reader software to ‘read’ the content!
Operable
Anyone can utilize any part of an operable website’s functionality, like page navigation, selecting links, and pausing video and audio!
Understandable
Websites should have easy-to-understand graphic design and written content. Avoid using jumbled and verbose language that is difficult to understand!
Robust
Visitors should be able to easily interpret and consume all your website content, including users who depend on assistive devices like screen readers. This is possible through HTML code that assistive technologies can easily parse without visual reference!
How to Make Your Website Accessible
You may want to know how to improve your web accessibility if you realize your website doesn’t meet the guidelines. The good news is that the WCAG provides specific guidelines for each of the four principles!
# Perceivable web accessibility guidelines
# Operable web accessibility guidelines
# Understandable web accessibility guidelines
# Robust web accessibility guidelines
As assistive instruments use a web page’s HTML file to translate content as required, web pages should have well-written HTML code. It means including start and end tags where necessary and avoiding the use of duplicate IDs across elements!
When Will the WCAG 3.0 Be Ready?
As of writing this article, the WCAG 3.0 is still a working draft and isn’t expected to be finalized until 2023. However, the AGWG (Accessibility Guidelines Working Group) is satisfied that the first public working draft is ready for general feedback!
What Happens to WCAG 2 Series?
The new WCAG 3.0 standards won’t differ much from the current WCAG 2 series standards. And while WCAG 3.0 isn’t backward compatible with WCAG 2 series, both have parallel standards. So if your content is WCAG 2.2 compliant, then there’s no need to test it against WCAG 3.0 standards unless necessary. However, new accessibility standards may be added to the WCAG 3.0 from the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) and User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG). This will lead to a new WCAG that will resemble a comprehensive set of standards replacing ATAG and UAAG!
Why WCAG 3.0?
WCAG 3.0 is necessary as while AGWG has addressed most challenges in WCAG 2.1 and 2.2, the guidelines need an overhaul because of the following:
Technological changes
There have been many technological advances since WCAG 2.0 was finalized in 2008. WCAG aims to account for all these emerging technologies, especially those related to mobile and wearable devices and Internet of Things technologies!
Increased disability groups
With the changes in technology comes a broader need to accommodate content per users’ needs. For example, there are now so many more virtual and augmented reality options than in 2008!
Poor readability
The WCAG 2 series wasn’t easily understood. However, people from various professions and technical knowledge levels will be able to understand the plain language used in WCAG 3.0!
Poor categorization
The success criteria of the WCAG 2 series will now be referred to as Outcomes in WCAG 3.0. And all generic and non-technical summary statements about the standard will be called guidelines. Consolidating headings and sections into a single outcome and moving labels out is better than having labels all over the place, as was in WCAG 2.2!
Better scoring system
Websites had to meet AA standards and pass or fail success criteria for website compliance according to WCAG 2.2. However, scoring in WCAG 3.0 is based on means and functional needs or categories. So, for example, companies will learn how well their content accommodates users with motor challenges after tallying the final score to realize that accessibility standards aren’t dictated only for screen readers!
Will WCAG 3.0 have Levels A, AA, and AAA?
No. WCAG 3.0 will have different models to measure conformance to meet numerous criteria. Levels A, AA, and AAA help decide if a site meets legal guidelines. However, it doesn’t assess how accessible a website is on a sliding scale. WCAG 3.0 scoring, however, is different. And to better understand the scoring system, you first need to understand some terms!
# Atomic tests
# Holistic tests
# Functional categories
# Rating
# Conformance
# Critical errors
Rating of Outcomes in WCAG 3.0
Each Outcome will be rated from 0 to 4, where zero is a failing score, and outcomes with critical errors automatically receive a 0 rating. The possible ratings are:
# Rating 0 or very poor where less than 60% of images have suitable text alternatives or there’s a critical error
# Rating 1 or Poor, where 60-69% of images have suitable options for text, but no critical errors
# Rating 2 or Fair, where 70-79% of images have appropriate text alternatives and no vital errors
# Rating 3 or Good, where 80-94% of the images have suitable options for text and no critical errors
# Rating 4 or Excellent, where 95-100% of all images have appropriate text alternatives and no vital errors
The average of ratings for all outcomes gives the final score, which determines conformance!
ADA Site Compliance is the number one source for ADA website compliance. So if you need help with accessibility efforts, our team can help ensure your website conforms to other emerging technologies and accessibility issues!
