What is WCAG, in plain English?

WCAG stands for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, the international standard for making websites usable by people with disabilities — for example, someone who is blind and uses a screen reader, someone who can't use a mouse and navigates by keyboard only, or someone with low vision who needs higher contrast text. It's published by the W3C, the same organization that maintains core web standards like HTML and CSS.

The current version is WCAG 2.2, published in October 2023. It's backward-compatible, meaning a site that meets 2.2 also satisfies the older 2.1 and 2.0 versions.

The three levels: A, AA, AAA

WCAG organizes its rules into three conformance levels:

• Level A — the minimum. Without this, some people simply cannot use parts of the site.
• Level AA — the level most organizations target, and the one most often referenced in legal and procurement contexts.
• Level AAA — the highest, most specialized level. Few sites attempt full AAA conformance, and WCAG itself doesn't recommend it as a general target.

If you only remember one thing: Level AA is the practical target for most websites, including small business sites. That's also the level this tool checks against.

Does WCAG itself require anything by law?

WCAG is a technical standard, not a law. In the US, the relevant law is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which the Department of Justice has said applies to businesses open to the public — including their websites. The DOJ's own guidance doesn't mandate a specific WCAG version or level, but points to WCAG as a useful technical reference for what "accessible" means in practice.

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