What Is WCAG 2.2 and Why Does It Matter for Your Business?

WCAG 2.2 sounds technical. It is. But it’s also the legal baseline for website accessibility in the UK and the EU — and understanding it is the difference between randomly fixing things and fixing the right things.

WCAG stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. It’s published by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), the international standards body for the web. WCAG 2.2 is the current version, published in October 2023. It’s more detailed than the previous version (WCAG 2.1), and it adds specific success criteria for emerging accessibility challenges like focus appearance, dragging interfaces, and accessible authentication.

Here’s what you actually need to know: WCAG 2.2 is the standard that both the UK Equality Act 2010 and the European Accessibility Act require you to meet. It organises accessibility requirements into four principles, three levels of compliance, and 93 testable success criteria. Your job is not to memorise the criteria — it’s to understand the principles and know that Level AA is the compliance requirement.

The Four Principles — POUR

WCAG organises requirements around four principles, remembered as POUR:

Perceivable. Users must be able to perceive the content. This means text can’t be too small to read, images need alternative text so users with vision loss can understand them, and colour alone can’t convey information (because colourblind users wouldn’t get it). A page might be technically visible on screen, but if you can’t perceive the information — if alt text is missing from an image, or text contrast is too low — it fails Perceivable.

Operable. Users must be able to navigate and interact with your site. This means you need keyboard navigation (not just mouse clicks), focus indicators so keyboard users can see where they are, and no keyboard traps (places where you can tab into something but can’t tab out). A page might have navigation buttons visible, but if those buttons only respond to mouse clicks, a user on a keyboard or using a switch device can’t operate it.

Understandable. Users must be able to understand the content and how to use the interface. This means text needs to be clear and simple, form fields need labels so users know what information to enter, and navigation should be predictable (menus in the same place on every page, for example). A page might have a contact form, but if the fields have no labels, users with screen readers won’t know what information each field is asking for.

Robust. The site must work reliably with assistive technologies — screen readers for blind users, voice control for motor-impaired users, and browsers that zoom content for users with low vision. This is largely a code quality issue. Well-written semantic HTML and JavaScript that respects accessibility patterns is robust. Broken HTML, missing ARIA attributes, and custom widgets built without accessibility in mind are not.

These four principles are frameworks. The specific success criteria under each principle are what you actually measure against.

Three Levels — A, AA, AAA

WCAG defines three levels of compliance: A, AA, and AAA. They stack — AAA includes all AA requirements plus additional ones.

Level A is basic. It’s the absolute minimum floor. No large organisations consider Level A acceptable — it leaves too many barriers in place.

Level AA is the internationally recognised standard for legal compliance and good practice. It’s what the Equality Act, the EAA, and public sector regulations require. It’s ambitious enough to catch and prevent most common failures, but achievable for most businesses without unreasonable effort. Level AA is the compliance baseline.

Level AAA is aspirational best practice — even Google doesn’t claim Level AAA compliance across all properties. It includes requirements that are harder to achieve, like providing sign language interpretation for audio content or offering multiple ways to locate content (search, site map, breadcrumb trails, etc.). You don’t need AAA.

When someone says “your site needs to be WCAG 2.2 Level AA compliant,” they mean: meet all 78 success criteria that make up Level A and Level AA. That’s your legal obligation.

What Level AA Actually Covers

Level AA success criteria are spread across the four principles. Here are the most impactful ones your business should know:

Colour contrast (Perceivable). Text needs to contrast with its background by a ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text, or 3:1 for large text (18pt+ or bold 14pt+). This ensures people with low vision or colour blindness can read the text.

Alternative text for images (Perceivable). Every informative image needs descriptive alt text. Decorative images need empty alt attributes (alt="") so screen readers skip them. Logo images in links need alt text describing the link destination, not the image itself.

Keyboard accessibility (Operable). Every interactive element (links, buttons, form fields, custom widgets) must be reachable by keyboard and usable without a mouse. Tab order must be logical. There must be no keyboard traps — places where keyboard focus gets stuck.

Focus visibility (Operable). When you tab to an interactive element, it needs a visible focus indicator — a border, background change, or outline. The default browser outline is acceptable, but a clear, high-contrast indicator is better.

Form accessibility (Understandable). Every input field, select box, and textarea needs a visible, associated label. Required fields need a visible indicator. Error messages need to be specific and linked to the relevant field. Help text should be available.

Heading hierarchy (Understandable). Pages must use heading levels (H1, H2, H3) in a logical, non-skipped order. One H1 per page (usually the page title). Headings must be used for structure, not styling. Screen reader users navigate by headings — broken hierarchy breaks navigation.

Link purpose (Understandable). Links must have meaningful text. “Click here” or “read more” tells a user nothing. “Download our accessibility guide” is clear.

Text resize (Robust). Content must remain readable and functional when text is resized to 200% zoom. Nothing can be cut off or require horizontal scrolling.

These are the headline ones. There are 78 criteria total — but if you fix these eight areas, you’ll catch the vast majority of common failures.

Why Level AA, Not Level A or AAA

Level A is barely acceptable. It’s easy to pass Level A and still leave massive barriers in place — a site might have colour contrast that’s technically Level A compliant but still unreadable for some users.

Level AAA is unreasonably ambitious for most businesses. It includes requirements like providing captions and transcripts for all audio content, offering sign language interpretation for video, and providing multiple ways to locate content. These are good practices, but they’re not legal requirements for SMEs.

Level AA is the sweet spot. It’s legally required by the Equality Act and the EAA. It’s internationally recognised as the professional standard. It’s achievable for most businesses without unreasonable cost or effort. And it prevents the vast majority of real-world barriers.

When WCAG 2.2 Applies to You

The UK Equality Act 2010 applies to all UK service providers. No size exemption. No sector exemption. If you have a website that customers or the public can access, WCAG 2.2 Level AA accessibility is a legal obligation.

The European Accessibility Act applies to any business selling products or services to EU consumers. It requires WCAG 2.2 Level AA compliance, with enforcement starting in 2026–2027.

If you’re a UK-only business with a small website, the Equality Act is your primary constraint. If you also serve EU customers, the EAA enforcement gives the obligation extra teeth — and penalties can reach €3M per member state.

Either way, WCAG 2.2 Level AA is your benchmark.

How to Check Compliance

Start with an automated scan. Tools like axe-core, Lighthouse, WAVE, and similar scan your site and check against machine-testable success criteria. These catch 30–50% of all issues — the automatable part.

But automated testing has limits. A site can pass every automated check and still be inaccessible if:

• Manual navigation with a screen reader reveals poor semantic structure
• Custom JavaScript widgets are built without proper keyboard support
• Keyboard focus gets trapped in modal dialogs or custom menus
• Touch targets are too small on mobile
• Cognitive accessibility is poor (unclear language, unpredictable navigation, confusing forms)

The remaining 50–70% requires manual expert testing with real assistive technologies.

What’s New in WCAG 2.2

If you’re familiar with WCAG 2.1, WCAG 2.2 added three new success criteria:

• Focus Appearance — Focus indicators must meet minimum size and contrast requirements. This prevents invisible focus indicators on custom styled elements.
• Dragging — If your site uses drag-and-drop interfaces, users must be able to accomplish the same task using a single pointer (no complex multi-touch gestures).
• Accessible Authentication — If you use CAPTCHA or similar authentication, it can’t require identification of non-text content (like “click the picture with a car”). Text-based authentication or alternative methods must be available.

These are refinements, not fundamental changes. If you’re already building accessible sites, you’re mostly compliant already.

The Bottom Line

WCAG 2.2 Level AA is the legal baseline for website accessibility in the UK and EU. It’s not perfect, it’s not aspirational, and it’s not optional. It’s the standard that the Equality Act and the EAA require you to meet.

Understanding the four principles — Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust — gives you a mental model for accessibility. The specific success criteria are testable and measurable. An automated scan gives you a starting point. Manual testing with real assistive technologies gives you the full picture.

Start with a scan. Prioritise the highest-impact failures. Plan for manual testing. And if you need a baseline check, Bartram Web screens your site against WCAG 2.2 Level AA and delivers a prioritised action plan with human review built in.

For more detail on the legal frameworks that require WCAG 2.2, see UK Equality Act and European Accessibility Act. For the most common failures and how to fix them, see Common Accessibility Failures.