Conformance to WAI Accessibility Guidelines, conformance icons

The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has published guidelines for promoting the accessibility of the World Wide Web. Each guidelines document includes a section describing conformance to the document. The present page provides additional information about using the conformance icons, on references to the guidelines in policy settings, and more.

The WAI guidelines documents are:

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG)

These guidelines explain how to make Web content accessible to people with disabilities.

Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (ATAG)

This specification provides guidelines for Web authoring tool developers. Its purpose is two-fold: to assist developers in designing authoring tools that generate accessible Web content and to assist developers in creating an accessible authoring interface.

User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (UAAG)

This document provides guidelines to user agent developers for making their products accessible to people with disabilities. User agents include graphical desktop browsers, multimedia players, plug-ins, voice browsers, and other assistive technologies used to access Web content. Developers must ensure that user agent functionalities are accessible to users with disabilities and that user agents communicate with other user agents to provide additional functionalities necessary for full access to the Web.

XML Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (XAG)

This document provides guidelines for designing Extensible Markup Language (XML) applications that lower barriers to Web accessibility for people with disabilities (visual, hearing, physical, cognitive, and neurological). XML, used to design applications such as XHTML, SMIL, and SVG, provides no intrinsic guarantee of the accessibility of those applications. This document explains how to include features in XML applications that promote accessibility.

1. Conformance Icons

As part of a conformance claim, people may use a conformance icon (or logo) on a Web site, on product packaging, in documentation, etc.

1.1 How to use the icons

For any of the guidelines documents, a conformance icon (chosen according to the appropriate conformance level) must link to the W3C explanation of the icon. The appearance of a conformance icon does not imply that W3C has reviewed or validated the claim. An icon must be accompanied by a well-formed claim. Here is an example of using the WCAG Level Double-A icon and a link to a well-formed claim:

<A href="http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG1AA-Conformance"
      title="Explanation of Level Double-A Conformance">
  <IMG height="32" width="88" 
          src="http://www.w3.org/WAI/wcag1AA"
          alt="Level Double-A conformance icon, 
          W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0"></A>
  | <A href="URI-to-well-formed-claim">About conformance</A>

1.2 The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 icons

Please refer to the page that explains how to use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Conformance Logos in HTML 4.

1.3 The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 1.0 icons

Please refer to the page that explains how to use the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Conformance Logos in HTML 4.

Please refer to sample conformance claims to ATAG 1.0.

1.4 The User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) 1.0 icons

Please refer to the page that explains how to use the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Conformance Icons.

1.5 The XML Accessibility Guidelines (XAG) 1.0 icons

Not yet available. These will become available should the XML Accessibility Guidelines become a W3C Recommendation.

About the Web Accessibility Initiative

W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), in partnership with organizations around the world, is pursuing accessibility of the Web through five activities:

1. ensuring that core technologies of the Web support accessibility;
2. developing guidelines for Web content, user agents, and authoring tools;
3. developing evaluation and repair tools for accessibility;
4. conducting education and outreach;
5. coordinating with research and development that can affect future accessibility of the Web.

The WAI International Program Office is supported in part by funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Education's National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, European Commission's DG XIII Telematics Applications Programme for Disabled and Elderly, the Government of Canada, IBM, Lotus Development Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, and Bell Atlantic. For more information please refer to the WAI home page.

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