On October 5, 2023, version 2.2 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) was officially released as a W3C recommendation, marking a step toward a more accessible and inclusive Web for more and more people with disabilities, including people with learning disorders.

The update aims at improving the accessibility of web content not only on desktop and laptop, but also on tablet and mobile devices, which makes WCAG 2.2 a point of reference for the creation of more accessible and usable web content for all users.

What are the new features compared to WCAG 2.1

WCAG 2.2 is backwards compatible with the previous versions, WCAG 2.1 and 2.0: web content that conforms to WCAG 2.2 automatically conforms to WCAG 2.1 and 2.0. This new version does not make previous versions obsolete or deprecated, the Recommendation is to refer to the new version of the guidelines when developing, updating and testing web content.

All the new features introduced by WCAG 2.2 are detailed in the W3C document What’s New in WCAG 2.2.

Compared to the previous version, WCAG 2.2 adds 9 new success criteria (that is, testable accessibility statements): two at level A and four at level AA, required to be normatively compliant, and three at level AAA. Success criteria 4.1.1 “Parsing” has been removed since it has been considered obsolete. With this update, the success criteria to meet to be normatively compliant are now 55.

Compared to what we anticipated in our previous article on WCAG 2.2, Success criterion 2.4.7 “Focus visible” has not been moved to Level A, but three new Success Criteria, 2.4.11, 2.4.12 and 2.4.13, define new requirements that apply to the keyboard focus indicator and its visibility.

All other success criteria remain unchanged, word for word, from version 2.1.

What to do now?

The answer is simple: start working now to comply with the new version, both when designing and developing web content, and when assessing the accessibility conformance level of your web content.

A WCAG 2.2-compliant web content will automatically be in line with current technical and legislative regulations and ready to meet what is expected in upcoming updates of European and national technical standards.

If you have a website and are interested in assessing its level of accessibility, we can take care of that . Fondazione LIA is a member of WCAG – WAI EOWG, the W3C working group dedicated to the accessibility of websites and mobile applications. We also offer customized training aimed at achieving the level of accessibility that meets the requirements of the international guidelines.