Join Natalie Garza and Natalie MacLees for the 22nd episode of the AAArdvark Accessibility Podcast. In this episode, they delve into the history of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), covering versions 1.0 through 2.2, and offer an in-depth discussion on the structure and objectives of the upcoming WCAG 3.0. They explore the changes in guidelines, requirements, and vocabulary and discuss the draft state of WCAG 3.0.
Natalie Garza: Hello everybody, and welcome to the AAArdvark Accessibility Podcast. This is episode 22, and my name is Natalie Garza. I’m one of the co-hosts, and with me today is,
Natalie MacLees: Natalie MacLees, the other co-host.
Natalie Garza: and she is an accessibility expert here to answer our questions. And in this episode we’re gonna talk about WCAG 3.0.
Natalie MacLees: WCAG 3.0. We did our best.
Natalie Garza: We did our best to research and investigate. So we’re gonna share our notes with you guys and our thoughts. But, to start off, Natalie, do you wanna give us a quick history on WCAG’s versions?
Natalie MacLees: Yeah, sure. So early on, people figured out that we needed guidelines to figure out how to make the web accessible. So WCAG 1.0 was released in 1999 to kind of help address that. It was pretty simple. It was just 14 guidelines, and they had a priority one, two, or three, which kind of roughly became A, AA, and AAA, when 2.0 came out in 2008.
And that’s where we got the structure we know now, where we have the POUR principles. Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust, with the success criteria and the guidelines underneath those four principles. The web moved along, new technology came out, and people started buying smartphones left and right. They realized there was some things that didn’t get addressed in 2.0.
So we got 2.1, which came out in 2018, which added some more rules around mobile devices and also added some more rules for people with cognitive disabilities and, low vision. Again, the web moved along new technologies and we got WCAG 2.2 pretty recently in October of 2023, which added even more guidelines for people with cognitive disabilities and also with motor impairments.
So just addressing some things that got left out and addressing some new technologies and things as the web moved along.
Natalie Garza: So do you want to give us a quick introduction to WCAG 3.0.
Natalie MacLees: Yeah, so when we WCAG 1.0, it was really focused on HTML, ’cause CSS and JavaScript were so new at the time, like nobody was really thinking about them. And when we had 2.0, that’s when they really started thinking about, “Oh, there’s CSS and JavaScript.” And of course, we see a lot of the techniques and things.
We’ll reference scripting and CSS. But the web has really kind of moved on. We have really robust, rich applications that can take the place of desktop applications, which we take for granted now, and we forget how revolutionary those were. And 2.0 doesn’t really do a super great job at addressing that.
So 3.0 is coming along to help and better address, you know, mobile applications and these rich kind of very interactive applications that we build on the web now.
Natalie Garza: Yeah. And, before we start talking about 3.0, it’s nowhere near finished.
Natalie MacLees: They have the skeleton there and now they just have to fill all the information in. Yeah.
Natalie Garza: Mm-hmm. Yeah. If you try to click through, you’ll find it’s pretty empty. There’s not much to reference.
Natalie MacLees: Yeah, and you definitely couldn’t implement it yet. At this point, there is not enough guidance there to figure out like, how would I meet this rule that’s being added?
Natalie Garza: and it’s not going to replace 2.0, 2.1, or 2.2 anytime soon.
Natalie MacLees: Yeah, so that’s always been the case, like a new WCAG version never replaces what came before. We kind of just move along and adopt the new one when it comes time. I did see a timeline somewhere that said they expect to have the timeline of when they will finish 3.0 in September of this year, so September of 2025.
We can expect them to give us finally a date for when they expect 3.0 to be done.
Natalie Garza: So, do you wanna go over the new structure in 3.0?
Natalie MacLees: Yeah, we can do our best to dive into it. We might get something wrong, but just let us know.
Natalie Garza: So in WCAG 3.0, they actually changed the structure of all the content, right? So before it was structured in Principle, followed by Guidelines, followed by Success Criteria. Whereas now they’re doing Guidelines as a topmost level, followed by Requirements.
Natalie MacLees: Yes. And then requirements have methods.
Natalie Garza: Yes. And there’s different types of requirements.
Natalie MacLees: There are, which the methods are similar to the techniques we have now. They’re kinda like, how to do this. And we do have different types of techniques now, right? We have the Advisory techniques and the, the other one…
Natalie Garza: Sufficient.
Natalie MacLees: sufficient. Yes. So we have that now. We have Sufficient Techniques and we have Advisory Techniques.
So this is similar ’cause we have Foundational Requirements and we have Supplemental Requirements. And then there are methods under each of those.
Natalie Garza: And in addition, we have Assertions that sit next to the Requirements.
Natalie MacLees: Yes. Yes. We also have Assertions, and I’ll be honest, I don’t quite, I haven’t quite wrapped my head around the Assertions.
Natalie Garza: And they’re supposed to be Informative, so there’s just supposed to be like extra little tidbits.
Natalie MacLees: The Assertions are Normative. But then the how-to documents under the Assertions are Informative.
Natalie Garza: Yeah, there’s, they did a weird thing where they completely threw out all the vocabulary everyone’s already familiar with and has worked with for 20 years, WCAG 2.2, and they’re trying to introduce brand new vocabulary. And names for all these things.
Natalie MacLees: Except confusingly kept Guidelines, but made them mean something different. Slightly different, I guess. Yeah. And they have really focused on breaking out the parts of the spec that are Normative and the parts of the spec that are Informative. So Normative are the things that you would use to test against, to determine is this passing or failing, and Informative are like the techniques that you would use to actually accomplish something.
Natalie Garza: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I’m trying to think of stuff on those WCAG 2.2 articles that are more informative, like the equivalent of the informative text.
Natalie MacLees: I think the techniques would be the informative part of 2.2, right? Like, how to actually accomplish this. But the Success Criteria in itself is Normative, so that’s what tells you what you’re gonna test against. And then the techniques are the things that are Informative that tell you how to pass that test.
Natalie Garza: Okay. I see what you mean.
Natalie MacLees: Yeah, they’re not as like clearly divided in WCAG 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, but in 3.0, they’re really focused on separating those, Normative and Informative parts of the standard out.
Natalie Garza: Yes. Do you wanna cover or go over the comparison that we have based off what’s already written in 3.0?
Natalie MacLees: Yeah, let’s go ahead and do that.
Natalie Garza: So in 3.0, the one that’s most filled in so far is one called Image Alternatives. And I don’t know if it’s gonna be 2.1.1 or if it’s gonna be 1.1, but the closest success criteria we have right now is 1.1.1 Non-text Content. And I think the theme that we’re seeing in 3.0 is that they’re being a lot more specific on elements, whereas 2.2 can be really broad in a lot of cases.
Especially in 1.1.1, where it says like literally anything that’s not text, we’re gonna check on this one.
Natalie MacLees: Yes. Anything that’s not text falls under 1.1.1. Yeah.
Natalie Garza: And I would say that in the 3.0 documentation, I do like this new approach where they’re kind of trying to guide you through like a conditional statement, it’s: Is this decorative? No. Click here. If yes, continue.
If this image is available to assistive technology, yes. Click this link here. If not, continue.
So like, I like that approach. Comparing it to the Success Criteria we have right now, where they give you 30 links, click one of these if you think it applies to you.
Natalie MacLees: Yeah. You do have to do a lot of work in 2.2 to figure out which of the Sufficient and Advisory techniques apply to your situation. And sometimes they spell that out a little bit, but often they don’t.
So it’s kind of up to you, and it looks like in 3.0 they’re making that a lot more obvious. Like, here’s how you’ll deal with different situations, and there’s some very specific prescriptions for what you need to do if you’re handling those different situations.
Natalie Garza: Yeah, I can see there’s an effort to try to guide people to the right page and the right place, and to the right methods, but this language is still so, so stiff.
It’s still really hard to read.
Natalie MacLees: And very technical at this point still. Yes. So hopefully that, will get adjusted as they go along. And just like with WCAG 2.0, there’s the separate Understanding documents, which are meant to be like a more accessible version of the guideline. And I would imagine that we’ll see the same thing with 3.0, that there will be a separate set of documents meant to be your introduction to this specific guideline or method.
Natalie Garza: Mm-hmm. Yeah. But just as an example, I’d like to read an excerpt from WCAG 3.0 Image Alternatives.
Natalie MacLees: Sure.
Natalie Garza: Under foundational requirements, step two says,
“Is the image presented in a way that is available to user agents and assistive technology?
Yes, image must meet Image is programmatically determinable AND the accessibility support set incorporates Equivalent text alternative is available for image that conveys content. Stop.”
Natalie MacLees: Very technical.
Natalie Garza: I don’t know what I just read.
Natalie MacLees: Yeah, that, that is definitely language that is meant for a developer who is writing a very technical test, right? So very Normative, like a requirement here that’s explaining exactly how this content is going to meet a test.
So I think that more beginner-level information will hopefully come later.
Natalie Garza: Yeah. So to summarize, WCAG 3.0 is still a working draft. Very, very early stages. Changes the structure completely, changes all the vocabulary that we’ve come to know and understand. It’s not supposed to replace 2.0 and maybe around 5% done.
Natalie MacLees: Yeah, that’s probably fair, and we can keep an eye out for later this fall when we find out when they actually expect 3.0 to be ready.
Natalie Garza: Mm-hmm. That’s right. Yes. So, with all that said, where can people start to learn more about accessibility and what guidelines we have now?
Natalie MacLees: Yeah, so I don’t have a place for you to go to learn about 3.0 in an easy way, just yet. But if you wanna learn about 2.0, 2.1 or 2.2 and figure out if your own website is accessible, you can come on over to AAArdvarkAccessibility.com scan your homepage, we’ll show you, where the errors that are automatically detectable are, and guide you through how to fix those.
Natalie Garza: Mm-hmm. Yes. And if you have any confusion as you review the official documentation. Go check out WCAGinPlainEnglish.com where we’ve rewritten every single success criteria in plain language.
Natalie MacLees: Yes, made it easy to understand for beginners.
Natalie Garza: Yes. So with all that said, thank you guys for joining us. This has been episode 22, we will talk to y’all next time.
