Understanding Partial Conformance - Third Party Content

From WCAG WG

Category

Status

WCAG references

Description

Understanding Partial Conformance - Third Party Content

When an author makes a decision to use a third party implementation, they should choose products that meet WCAG requirements. If all content on a page, including third party content, meets all WCAG success criteria then the page conforms to WCAG. However, if the page does not conform to WCAG only for reasons that are legitimately outside the author's control then the author can make a claim of partial conformance. It is important to recognize that this is a statement of non-conformance and there are users who may not be able to access some of the content this page.

One reason that content may be outside the author's control is because it is being provided by a third party (blogs, portals, news sites). Web pages may also include content via third party libraries, plugins, or widgets.

Be sure to monitor any content that can change without approval from the web page author, as a page which once conformed may suddenly fail to conform. If it is not possible to monitor and repair the third party content, it may be possible to identify the non-conforming parts of the page to users. If the rest of the web page conforms to WCAG, such a page qualifies for a statement of partial conformance, third party content.