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Sheet 01Accessible by design12-column grid on

Accessible by design: WCAG for a small-business site

An accessible website is one that people with disability can perceive, understand, navigate and interact with, and the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, known as WCAG, set out how to build one. The latest version is WCAG 2.2, and the W3C’s own Easy Checks are a quick first look at how close a page already is.

General information from the W3C’s published standards, not legal advice. For the standard itself, check the W3C’s WCAG pages; for how Australian discrimination law treats websites, check the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Sheet 01Accessible by design

Frame 1 · The standardWhat WCAG is

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) defines web accessibility as websites, tools and technologies “designed and developed so that people with disabilities can use them”. It covers auditory, cognitive, neurological, physical, speech and visual disabilities.

WCAG is the technical standard behind that idea. The W3C is plain that it is written for people who want a technical standard, such as page authors and site designers, and that it is not an introduction to accessibility. That is why it helps to know its shape before reading it.

  • Four principles. WCAG 2.2 has 13 guidelines, grouped under four principles: perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.
  • Testable success criteria. Each guideline has success criteria that can be tested, and those are what decide whether content conforms.
  • Three levels. Every success criterion sits at Level A, AA or AAA.

WCAG 2.0 was published on 11 December 2008, WCAG 2.1 on 5 June 2018, and WCAG 2.2 on 5 October 2023, with an update on 12 December 2024. The versions are built to be backwards compatible: content that conforms to WCAG 2.2 also conforms to 2.1 and 2.0, and the W3C says: “If you want to meet all the versions, you can use the WCAG 2.2 resources and you do not need to look at earlier versions.” WCAG 2.2 is also an approved ISO standard, ISO/IEC 40500:2025.

Frame 2 · AustraliaWhere Australia fits

In 2022, 5.5 million Australians (21.4%) had disability, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. More than half of Australians aged 65 and over (52.3%) had disability. A small business’s customers are drawn from that population.

The W3C keeps a record of accessibility law and policy by country. For Australia it lists the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 as a non-discrimination law, with the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Attorney-General’s Department as the responsible bodies, and a scope that takes in government, the public sector and the private sector. The record lists no WCAG version for the Act itself.

The same record points to the Commission’s Guidelines on equal access to digital goods and services, which it describes as an update of the Commission’s 2014 advisory note on web access under the Act. For Australian Government agencies, it lists the Digital Transformation Agency’s Digital Experience Policy, which uses WCAG 2.2.

The Commission’s guidelines say they are issued under the Act and are written for organisations that have obligations under it when they provide digital goods and services. The guidelines themselves are not legally binding: they are to be read with the whole Act and with state and territory anti-discrimination laws, and a business that followed them may still not be protected from a finding of unlawful discrimination. They describe WCAG as “the applicable international standard for web accessibility” and say it is important to meet the latest published version. Whether and how the Act applies to a particular website is a legal question for a lawyer.

Frame 3 · Easy checksTen of the W3C’s Easy Checks, with the criteria behind them

The W3C’s Easy Checks are a first review anyone can run on a page. The W3C is careful to say they cover only a few issues: a page can seem to pass them and still have significant barriers. Here are ten of them, each paired with the WCAG 2.2 success criterion it relates to.

  • Page title. The title shows in the browser tab and is the first thing a screen reader reads. It should describe the page’s topic or purpose.2.4.2 Page Titled · Level A
  • Image alt text. A short description that conveys the image’s purpose, for people who do not see it.1.1.1 Non-text Content · Level A
  • Headings. Headings work like a table of contents, and screen reader users often move around a page by them.1.3.1 Info and Relationships · Level A; 2.4.6 Headings and Labels · Level AA
  • Colour contrast. Text needs a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 with its background, or 3:1 for large text, which WCAG treats as 18 point, or 14 point bold. Colour should not be the only way information is shown.1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) · Level AA; 1.4.1 Use of Color · Level A
  • Skip link. The first interactive element on the page, letting keyboard and screen reader users jump past repeated menus to the main content.2.4.1 Bypass Blocks · Level A
  • Keyboard and visible focus. Everything should work from a keyboard, with a visible marker showing where the focus is. The W3C names sticky headers, sticky footers and cookie banners as content that can cover the focused item, and WCAG asks that the focused item is not entirely hidden.2.1.1 Keyboard · Level A; 2.4.7 Focus Visible · Level AA; 2.4.11 Focus Not Obscured (Minimum) · Level AA
  • Language of page. The page states its main language, so software that speaks the text pronounces it correctly.3.1.1 Language of Page · Level A
  • Zoom. Text can be resized up to 200 percent without losing content or function, and content reflows at a width of 320 CSS pixels without scrolling sideways.1.4.4 Resize Text · Level AA; 1.4.10 Reflow · Level AA
  • Captions and transcripts. Captions are a text version of a video’s speech and other sound, shown with the video. Transcripts are a text version of audio, available separately.W3C Easy Checks: audio and visual
  • Form labels and required fields. Each field has a label saying what to enter, and required fields are marked.W3C Easy Checks: forms

Frame 4 · ProcessWhen the checking happens

Many of these checks can be answered while the boxes are still grey. A wireframe can already show the heading order, the skip link, the reading order and the size of every button, before anyone chooses a colour.

Tools help, within limits. The W3C says evaluation tools can save time and effort, but some checks cannot be automated, tools can give inaccurate results, and it cautions against relying on what tools say over the real experience of people using the site.

People help more. The W3C describes involving people with disability throughout design and development: designers and developers learn how people use the web and the assistive technologies they rely on, and the W3C says development becomes more efficient and products work better for more people.

Say where the site stands. An accessibility statement, the W3C suggests, should at least include a commitment to accessibility, the standard applied (such as WCAG 2.2), and contact details for anyone who meets a problem. It should be written in plain language, explain known limitations in everyday terms (“videos do not have captions”, not a success criterion number), and be easy to find, for example from the footer. The same W3C page has a generator for writing one.