Insights
What is WCAG, and does my website need to comply?
WCAG comes up the moment anyone mentions accessibility, usually without explaining what it actually is. Here's the short version: what the abbreviation stands for, what the A, AA and AAA levels mean, and whether your organization needs to do anything about it.
What the abbreviation stands for
WCAG stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, an international standard from the W3C that describes when a website is accessible to people with disabilities: low vision, deafness, motor impairments or cognitive disabilities. The current version is 2.2, published in 2023.
The guidelines are built around four principles, often abbreviated POUR: perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. Each principle has concrete success criteria, like 'images have alt text' or 'all functionality works with a keyboard'.
The levels: A, AA and AAA
Every success criterion belongs to a level. Level A is the minimum: without these, a site is simply unusable for some visitors. Level AA adds requirements that genuinely help most people with disabilities, such as sufficient color contrast and a logical focus order. Level AAA is the strictest and, in practice, rarely fully achievable, even large organizations usually don't aim for it.
Regulation and virtually every tender reference level AA. That's the level I build to by default, unless a client specifically needs more.
Who needs to comply
In the Netherlands, government bodies and many public organizations (municipalities, provinces, education, healthcare) are legally required to meet WCAG 2.2 AA, under Dutch digital accessibility regulation. They also need to publish an accessibility statement describing how compliant the site is.
Commercial businesses aren't always legally bound to it yet, but that's changing. The European Accessibility Act extends the obligation from June 2025 to, among others, webshops, banks and transport services. And regardless of the law, more clients simply ask for it, because they in turn set requirements for their own suppliers.
How to find out if your site complies
Automated scanners (Lighthouse, axe, WAVE) catch part of the problems, think missing alt text or low color contrast, but miss anything that requires context: whether an error message makes sense to a screen reader user, whether the tab order is right, whether a form works without a mouse. A full audit combines automated checks with manual testing.
Want a quick read on your color contrast? I built a free contrast checker that instantly shows whether your color combinations meet WCAG AA or AAA.
Frequently asked questions
Good Questions
Setting expectations before we start, with a real process and honest answers.
No. Automated tools typically catch thirty to forty percent of WCAG issues. The rest, like whether error messages read sensibly or the focus order is logical, needs manual testing with a keyboard and screen reader.
That depends on how the site is currently built and how many page types it has. An audit alone already gives a good sense of scope; I follow up with a concrete estimate before starting on the fixes.
Legally, often not yet, but it's a good way to show clients and users you take accessibility seriously, and it prepares you for the broader obligations under the European Accessibility Act.
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