9 September 2025
What are WCAG: how to make your website accessible
WCAG and the European Accessibility Act: how to make your website truly inclusive
In 2025, accessibility is no longer optional: a poorly accessible website is outdated and could even be penalized or censored. But how do you actually make a website accessible? Is checking text-to-background contrast and adding alternative text to images really enough?
This is where the WCAG guidelines come into play.
WCAG stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These are recommendations designed to make the web usable for people with disabilities. For example:
- Time-based content must allow enough time to be read or used.
- Everything operable via keyboard must have a visible focus.
- Non-text content must be described in words (or ignored by assistive technologies if purely decorative).
- Color cannot be the only way to distinguish elements.
These are just a few examples. The ultimate goal is to include as many people as possible in the digital world, regardless of their individual challenges.
Why WCAG Compliance Matters: Supporting Disabilities and the European Accessibility Act
What are the benefits of complying with WCAG? At first glance, it may seem unnecessary to adapt websites for people with disabilities. But there are deeper considerations.
Accessibility is not only about people who are blind or have motor impairments—the cases we most easily imagine—but also about those with cognitive disabilities, learning disorders, or even simply age-related limitations. Especially in countries like Italy, where the population is older on average, WCAG compliance is becoming critical.
There are also business reasons: a non-accessible product—especially since the European Accessibility Act came into force—reaches fewer users, cannot collaborate with public entities, and, most importantly, risks legal consequences and financial penalties.
If we’ve convinced you of the importance of WCAG but you don’t know where to start, at Mabiloft we care deeply about accessibility. That’s why we offer free consultations for anyone who wants to improve their digital product with accessibility in mind. If you’re interested, get in touch with no obligation:
Who Created the WCAG and How to Choose the Right Guidelines
The WCAG were developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the same international organization that sets standards like HTML and CSS. Accessibility is managed by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), which defines not only technical specifications but also learning resources to apply them.
The process starts from user needs: requests and feedback are collected, then reviewed and turned into a draft Recommendation with a technical report. If the Recommendation proves effective during implementation and receives broad support from W3C members, it becomes an official web standard.
WCAG 2.1 vs. WCAG 2.2: What’s New?
The most recent version of the WCAG is 2.2, although 2.1 is still widely used. Version 2.2 is fully backward compatible—everything from 2.1 is still valid.
According to official documentation, the key differences include:
- Stronger requirements for visible focus (focus must never be hidden by other content).
- Drag-and-drop actions must have alternatives.
- Clickable elements must be at least 24×24 pixels.
- Help must be easy to find on pages, and consistent across pages.
- Repeated information should be selectable or auto-filled.
- No memory tests or puzzles should be required unless alternatives are provided.
In short, the updates are modest but introduce important new minimum criteria.
WCAG Compliance Levels: A, AA, AAA
There are three levels of WCAG compliance:
Livello | Significato |
A (basic) | The bare minimum for accessibility, but still with significant usability issues. |
AA (intermediate) | The standard level, removing most common barriers. |
AAA (advanced) | The highest level, covering even severe or rare disabilities, but also the hardest to achieve. |
In most cases, AA is considered sufficient, and is often the minimum required in public tenders and government projects. On the other side, AAA is recommended if your primary audience consists of users with disabilities.
If you’re unsure whether your digital product meets the minimum WCAG requirements for public sector use, Mabiloft can help. Contact us for a free consultation with one of our experts:
The Four Principles of WCAG (POUR) and the 13 Guidelines
WCAG is based on four core principles, summarized by the acronym POUR:
Perceivable | Users must be able to perceive information with at least one sense. |
Operable | Users must be able to interact with navigation and interface elements. |
Understandable | Information and instructions must be clear. |
Robust | Content must work across assistive technologies and evolving platforms. |
From these principles, the WCAG defines 13 guidelines. These are broader than success criteria but provide general direction. For example:
Adaptable: Create content that can be presented in different layouts without losing meaning.
Navigable: Provide ways to navigate, locate content, and determine one’s position.
Predictable: Ensure web pages behave in consistent and expected ways.
Each guideline comes with success criteria and techniques, categorized by compliance level (minimum vs. recommended).
WCAG Checklist: How to Test Website Accessibility
The most thorough method is to check each WCAG criterion point by point, but this is time-consuming and requires expertise.
There are many online WCAG checklists and accessibility testing tools that can give you an approximate idea of compliance. However, these too have limitations: manual verification is still necessary, and automated tools may miss important issues.
For anyone who wants to verify whether their site or app is truly WCAG-compliant, Mabiloft offers a free consultation call, where we’ll go through the criteria together.
