Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 in Development

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The Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AG WG) is happy to announce the First Public Working Draft of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2.

The structure and content of WCAG 2.2 is the same as 2.1 and 2.0. Version 2.2 will include new accessibility requirements, called “success criteria”.

Background

There were potential success criteria discussed during the development of 2.1 that needed more time or needed other specifications to mature. AG WG has continued to work on those potential success criteria. When a new success criterion is approved by the Working Group along with its supporting Understanding WCAG document and at least one Technique, then it will be added to the WCAG 2.2 Draft for wider review.

Side note: The AG WG is currently not planning to publish another version of WCAG 2, that is, not do a WCAG 2.3 — although that might change. We are working on a different accessibility standard. In-progress, un-approved requirements for the standard are available. We will announce when information is more stable on future web accessibility standards.

New success criteria

In this First Public Working Draft there is one new success criterion: “Focus visible (Enhanced)” at level AA. The “Focus visible” success criteria from WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 has been changed from level AA to level A.

We expect to add up to 12 more success criteria to WCAG 2.2. The new success criteria address user needs of people with cognitive or learning disabilities, users of mobile devices, and users of ebooks. Note that success criteria in the Drafts may change or be removed before the final WCAG 2.2 is published.

You will be able to review additional success criteria that AG WG has approved in the in-progress, unpublished Editors’ Draft.

Your Comments

Public feedback is really important to us. Based on this feedback, the proposed success criteria could be changed. We want to hear from users, authors, tool developers, policy makers, and others about benefits from the new proposed success criteria, as well as how achievable you feel it is to conform to the new success criteria. The main places to comment are on Github, and to the mailing list.

Schedule

Over the next couple of months, the AG WG will process other proposed success criteria, and input from the public. We plan to publish a final draft (W3C Candidate Recommendation) in June 2020, and hope to publish the final version of WCAG 2.2 as a “W3C Recommendation” web standard later in 2020.

To get announcements of updated drafts for review in e-mail, tweets, and RSS, see Get WAI News.

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