Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (Wikipedia)
A dedicated encyclopedia article on WCAG itself — more detailed than the general “Web Accessibility” article (Web Accessibility (Wikipedia)) on the standard’s internal structure, version history, and jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction legal adoption. Wikipedia articles are continuously edited, so year above reflects the access date (2026-06-24), not a fixed publication year.
License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Key points
- WCAG 2.0 (2008) has exactly 61 testable success criteria under 12 guidelines and 4 POUR principles (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust). Each success criterion is rated A (minimum), AA (mid-range, the level most legal mandates require), or AAA (highest) — a page’s overall conformance level is the lowest level any of its met criteria falls under, not an average.
- WCAG 2.1 (2018) adds 17 success criteria (78 total); WCAG 2.2 (October 2023) adds 9 more but removes success criterion 4.1.1 (Parsing) entirely, for a net total of 86.
- WCAG 3.0 has been in public draft since early 2021 (last updated September 2025), with no official Recommendation status yet and an expected departure from the 2.x scoring model.
- Specific legal mandates: U.S. DOJ final rule (April 24, 2024) setting WCAG 2.1 AA for state/local government under ADA Title II; EU Directive 2016/2102 and the European Accessibility Act (binding June 28, 2025); UK public-sector requirement since September 2018; Canada’s Jodhan Federal Court of Appeal decision (2012) reinforcing federal compliance.