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WCAG

Ionic applications should strive to conform to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These guidelines provide practical examples of how to meet those requirements for accessibility but should only be a baseline as many other factors weigh in for accessibility such as performance, UX, usability, etc.

What is WCAG?

Accessibility professionals from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) published detailed guidelines that define the requirements for web content accessibility called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

The WCAG technical documents are developed by the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AG WG) (formerly the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group), which is part of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

WCAG is organized around 4 basic principles:

  • Perceivable - Can users perceive the content? Just because something is perceivable with one sense, such as sight, that doesn’t mean all users can experience it.
  • Operable - Can users operate an interface or navigate the content? A hover interaction, for instance, cannot be operated by someone who can’t use a mouse or touchpad.
  • Understandable - Can users understand the content? Is the interface clear, and consistent enough to avoid confusion?
  • Robust - Can the content be consumed by a wide variety of user agents (browsers)? Does it work with assistive technology?

Compliance

WCAG has levels of conformance with guidelines that fall into Levels A, AA, and AAA. Most countries and companies strive for AA compliance where Level A issues are treated as issues that must be fixed.

  • Level A - Minimal level of Compliance
  • Level AA - Optimal conformance that satisfies Level A and AA.
  • Level AAA - Conformance that satisfies Level A, AA, and AAA but is not recommended as general policy because it is not possible to satisfy all Level AAA success criteria.