The year of WCAG 2.2

It took 5 years of research, deliberation, feedback, drafts and edits but the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 is finally here!

It offers nine additional success criteria which bring about positive change such as increasing the accessibility of security authentication methods. As a designer, what I’m most excited about is how it reinforces responsible design that does not interrupt, obscure or present difficulties with author-created content.

The new guidelines are backwards-compatible so by satisfying the requirements of WCAG 2.2, it also covers earlier versions. All except one criteria from WCAG 2.1 remains following the removal of Success Criterion 4.1.1 Parsing. Changes in the HTML standard means the criterion should always be considered satisfied (for HTML and XML content), effectively deprecating the requirement. You can find further information on this and other subjects relating to it on WCAG 2’s FAQs.

For ease of reference I have listed the latest criteria with links out to more support in understanding them;

2.4.11 Focus Not Obscured (Minimum) (AA)
2.4.12 Focus Not Obscured (Enhanced) (AAA)
2.4.13 Focus Appearance (AAA)
2.5.7 Dragging Movements (AA)
2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum) (AA)
3.2.6 Consistent Help (A)
3.3.7 Redundant Entry (A)
3.3.8 Accessible Authentication (Minimum) (AA)
3.3.9 Accessible Authentication (Enhanced) (AAA)

It’s only been a couple of months so far but I look forward to seeing how these guidelines are adopted innovatively by designers and developers across the industry in 2024!

Now that WCAG 2.2 has been released as a stable W3C Recommendation, it’s a good idea to familiarise yourself with the new success criteria in order to be able to integrate them in to your own apps and websites. Alternatively, if you would like our support with that please feel free to get in touch.