WCAG explained simply: This article unpacks what accessibility standards really mean and how they affect real people using digital content.
Homo Interneticus
The internet is everywhere. Our daily lives depend on access and connectivity for trivial aspects, like restocking the pantry and booking our next flight. We can hardly imagine our lives offline. Scrolling, clicking, pinching, dragging, dropping – we do all these without even thinking. But what happens if we get carpal tunnel and can no longer scroll as easily? What happens if our phone screen cracks and we can’t tap all the virtual buttons we’re used to using? Or if there’s a glare of light, making the screen hard to see? Maybe we sat on our glasses and they broke. Or we live with a disability but still have to navigate the digital space.
People with disabilities use Assistive technologies to access the internet for everyday activities. There are screen readers, screen magnifiers, voice activated devices, eye-trackers, sip and puff devices, alternative keyboards and custom mice. When apps and websites are properly built, they can bank, shop, game, communicate, read the news, book their own appointments, pay their bills or apply for jobs. Assistive technologies help “translate” the digital content into something they can use.
Screen readers not only read text aloud for blind users, they also help them create an equivalent experience with that of sighted users. With a screen reader, a blind person can check their calendar, create a mental picture of a document or website, understand content structure and actively navigate it, know when a list starts and ends, understand information presented in tables, fill in forms and submit them. In the same manner, voice commands allow people with mobility impairments to turn on the lights and set the temperature on the thermostat as well as interact with online content like news articles or social media posts. But to do that, the internet, the apps, the digital content must be set up properly, and this is where the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) come in.
The Three WCAG Levels Explained
WCAG ensures that assistive technologies can actually work as intended.
- Level A ensures the words and images on a screen are visible to assistive technologies.
- Level AA ensures that content is not only read out but can be interacted with using the assistive technologies of each user’s choice/need.
- Level AAA aims to make the digital world easier to access and faster to use, an overall more comfortable and welcoming space for users with disabilities.
Without at least Level AA compliance, the digital world shrinks and becomes frustrating and unusable for people with disabilities.
A Relatable Scenario
Imagine you’re trying to manage your finances – checking your balance, reviewing transactions, downloading reports. In addition, you need to pay your credit card today to avoid an increased interest fee.
You’re in Ontario, trying to manage your online banking. The printer is working, but the ink is low and the pages are hard to read. Reading glasses would help, but you can’t remember where you left them. (Hint: they’re on your head.) Just as you’re about to log in, a text arrives. Your internet provider says there’s an outage, and they’re working on it.
WCAG levels determine whether you can actually manage your money independently, or you need to ask your teenage son to restart the router and log you in the bank app.
Level A: Some Access.
At this level, basic information might be available, but it’s hard to find, hard to read, or only works in one way. Your bank statement is a scanned PDF that someone sighted could summarize for you. To login on the bank’s website, there’s a captcha that requires you to type certain characters that appear distorted. The bank assumes you have 20/20 vision/ glasses on or a friend willing to read them out loud to you. There’s also a mobile app but only in French and only for people in Quebec.
This is the bare minimum, like saying the bank does offer services but some people need to go an extra mile to access them. You might get a paper statement if you insist, after someone points you to the right teller.
Level AA: Sufficient Access
Now your internet is back and you can access your accounts, because you found your glasses and the captcha is just a checkbox. To login, you can scan your fingerprint or look at the webcam. The web portal is both in English and French. Your postal code no longer matters. Your statement is available in structured, readable, navigable text. You can navigate the app using a keyboard or screen reader. All mandatory form fields are clearly marked by the word “mandatory”, not just a red asterisk. All the charts make sense and have descriptions. Buttons are labeled clearly. Everything is designed to be understandable and operable by most people, including those with disabilities.
This is the legal and functional baseline, it’s not a luxury. This is what makes basic financial independence possible. You can read, understand, and use your account like everyone else, without having to ask for help.
Level AAA: Optimal Access
The bank offers financial coaching in English, French AND Sign Language
At this level, the financial tools go above and beyond. Personalized statements are offered in easy-read formats. There are videos explaining loan terms and they have both captions and sign language interpretation. Users can customize their dashboard based on their cognitive or visual preferences.
This is the best of all possible worlds, but it’s not required everywhere. Level AAA is about providing optimal access, not just sufficient access.
Why These Three Levels?
Not every organization can immediately meet the highest standards, so these three levels were designed to allow gradual improvement. They aren’t optional tracks or choices; they’re steps toward making sure everyone can eventually participate in digital life. Level AA spells out the minimum requirements that allows everybody to understand and use essential services, like reading their bank statements, renewing a prescription, making an appointment, buying a plane ticket or filing their taxes.
Why This Matters Now
Laws like the European Accessibility Act or the Accessible Manitoba Act (AMA) ensure a more consistent approach to digital accessibility by requiring compliance with WCAG 2.1 level AA. For organizations still complying only with WCAG 2.0, the effort to comply with 2.1 or 2.2 is considerable. While the 17-year-old WCAG 2.0 is still legal in some regions, like Ontario for example, that is an outdated standard that leaves out a lot of the new technologies and apps. It’s like using a flip phone in today’s smartphone world. To be truly accessible and compliant with emerging standards, as well as to futureproof your digital assets, aiming for WCAG 2.2 Level AA should be the new practical baseline.
How ADEPT UA Supports WCAG Compliance at Scale
Understanding WCAG is important, but applying it effectively across real-world documents is where accessibility truly happens. In enterprise environments, where PDFs and digital content are generated in large volumes, meeting accessibility standards like WCAG and PDF/UA requires consistency, structure, and efficiency.
ADEPT UA applies these standards directly to finished documents. It uses intelligent, rule-based processing to add semantic structure, tags, and accessibility metadata. No reauthoring or template changes are needed.
For teams working toward WCAG 2.2 Level AA compliance, ADEPT UA helps ensure that transactional and enterprise documents are not only compliant but also clear, usable, and inclusive for all users.
