WCAG 3 Introduction

Introduction

The WCAG documents explain how to make the web more accessible to people with disabilities. WCAG 3 applies to web content, apps, tools, publishing, and emerging technologies.

W3C Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 3 is currently an incomplete draft that will change. WCAG 3 is intended to develop into a W3C Standard in a few years.

The current standard, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2, is introduced in the WCAG 2 Overview.

The best way to prepare for WCAG 3 in the future, is to meet WCAG 2.2 success criteria now.

WCAG 3 is being designed to:

• have similar core requirements as WCAG 2, with some revisions and additions
• provide additional requirements and guidance
• provide a conformance model that allows more specific reporting of progress towards conformance and above minimal conformance

We will update this page regularly as work on the WCAG 3 Draft progresses.

Status: In-progress drafts

The WCAG 3 Draft includes potential guidelines, requirements, and conformance model that we are exploring. The final requirements in WCAG 3 will be different from this draft. Guidelines and requirements will be edited, added, combined, and removed. The conformance model will be refined.

Section status

Each normative section has a status that indicates how far along in the development process this section is, how ready it is for experimental adoption, and what kind of feedback we are looking for.

• Placeholder
• Exploratory
• Developing
• Refining
• Mature

For more information on the status indicators, see the Explainer section Current process for creating WCAG 3.

September 2026 updates

In September 2026, we published updated drafts:

• Explainer for WCAG 3 provides background information and describes the structure of the WCAG 3 Draft. We suggest reading the Explainer before reading WCAG 3.
• WCAG 3 Working Draft includes potential guidelines, requirements, and assertions that have progressed to Developing status. Those that are still Exploratory are available in the Editor’s Draft.

The conformance approach is substantially updated. For a brief description, see Conformance approach below.

Review questions

We encourage review and comment, particularly on the conformance model.

• The proposed conformance approach sets a single conformance level and uses tags to provide reporting tiers below and above that level. Does this improve upon the conformance approach in previous drafts?
• An alternate conformance approach proposal in the Explainer under “Alternative approach - Scoring” uses the tags to generate a score above and below conformance. What pros and cons do you see for each approach?
• In your role, how would you leverage reporting tiers leading to conformance or above conformance?

Instructions for commenting are below.

Research needed

Some of the guidelines and requirements are marked with “Needs additional research”. We are particularly interested in assistance identifying or conducting research to support or refute them.

WCAG 3 Draft approach

Some similar, some different

Goals for WCAG 3 include:

• be easier to understand
• cover more user needs, including more needs of people with cognitive disabilities
• be flexible to apply to:
  • different types of content, apps, and tools
  • different organizational situations
  • future technology changes

WCAG 3 is similar to previous versions in some ways. It has similar:

• goal of providing guidance on making web content and apps accessible to people with disabilities
• fundamental and specific accessibility requirements

WCAG 3 is very different from previous versions in some ways. It has:

• different structure
• different conformance model
• broader scope, beyond just web content

Structure

The WCAG 3 Draft includes:

• Guidelines (outcome statements)
  • Core Requirements
  • Supplemental Requirements
  • Assertions
  • Recommended practices

WCAG 3 Draft supporting material includes:

• Methods (that are somewhat similiar to WCAG 2 Techniques)
• How to Document (that are somewhat similiar to Understanding WCAG 2 documents)

For more information, see the Explainer section WCAG 3 Structure.

Conformance approach

The conformance model is the way to determine and communicate how well content, a website, an app, etc. meets WCAG.

The conformance model in WCAG 3 will be very different from WCAG 2. It is intended to:

• be more flexible for organizations (that is, owners and developers of websites, apps, tools, etc.)
• encourage more accessible user experiences

Conformance and reporting in the September 2026 draft

To conform to WCAG 3, content must meet all core requirements.

The draft uses tags and tiers to report progress towards conformance and beyond conformance.

For this model, all core requirements will have tags:

• Physical harm — Not meeting the requirement can cause someone with a disability immediate physical harm.
• Risk — Not meeting the requirement unreasonably increases financial, medical, legal, privacy, or security risk for someone with a disability.
• Barrier — Not meeting the requirement can prevent someone with a disability from proceeding.
• Friction — Not meeting the requirement can hinder someone with a disability.

The reporting tiers are based on the requirement tags, supplemental requirements, and assertions:

• Tier 1 — “Physical harm” and “Risk” requirements
• Tier 2 — “Physical harm”, “Risk”, and “Barrier” requirements
• Tier 3 Conformance — “Physical harm”, “Risk”, “Barrier”, and “Friction” requirements, that is, all core requirements
• Tier 4 — All core requirements and [a to-be-determined number of] supplemental requirements and assertions about content
• Tier 5 — All core requirements and [a to-be-determined greater number of] supplemental requirements and assertions about the content
• Tier 6 — All core requirements and [a to-be-determined greater number of] supplemental requirements and assertions about the content, and assertions about the organization

For more information, see:

• Explainer section Conformance approach
• WCAG 3 Draft section Conformance

WCAG 3 name

The name of WCAG 3 is different from WCAG 2:

• WCAG 3 is W3C Accessibility Guidelines
• WCAG 2 is Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

“W3C Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 3” was chosen:

• because of wide-spread familiarity with the “WCAG” acronym
• to encompass the broader scope beyond “content”

Development

Timeline

WCAG 3 is not expected to be a completed W3C standard for a few more years.

WCAG 3 will not supersede WCAG 2 and WCAG 2 will not be deprecated for several years after WCAG 3 is finalized.

The Accessibility Guidelines Working Group provides a projected WCAG 3 schedule.

When WCAG 3 is more stable, we will provide guidance on transitioning from WCAG 2 to WCAG 3.

Who develops WCAG 3

The WCAG technical documents are developed by the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AG WG) (previously under the Silver Task Force) with the Silver Community Group. These groups are part of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). You can learn about the development process from How WAI Develops Accessibility Standards through the W3C Process: Milestones and Opportunities to Contribute.

Your comments

We welcome your comments on WCAG 3 draft documents.

To comment, open new issues in the WCAG 3 GitHub repository. It’s free to create a GitHub account to create issues. If using GitHub is not feasible, email public-agwg-comments@w3.org

Please create separate GitHub issues or email messages for each topic, rather than commenting on multiple topics in a single issue or email.