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Common questions about WCAG 2.2
Plain answers to the questions teams ask most often when they reach for the standard.
How many WCAG 2.2 success criteria are there?
WCAG 2.2 has 87 numbered success criteria in total, of which 86 are active (4.1.1 Parsing was deprecated in WCAG 2.2). Of the 86 active criteria: 30 are Level A, 25 are Level AA, and 31 are Level AAA. Most legislation and contracts target Level AA, which means meeting all Level A and AA criteria - 55 in total.
What’s the difference between WCAG 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2?
WCAG 2.0 (2008) introduced 61 criteria across four principles. WCAG 2.1 (2018) added 17 new criteria covering mobile, low vision and cognitive disabilities (78 total). WCAG 2.2 (2023) added 9 new criteria and removed 1 obsolete criterion (4.1.1 Parsing), giving 86 active criteria. Each version is backwards-compatible - meeting WCAG 2.2 means meeting WCAG 2.1 and 2.0.
What are the four principles of WCAG?
WCAG is organised around four principles, often abbreviated POUR: Perceivable (information must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive), Operable (interface and navigation must be operable), Understandable (information and operation must be understandable), and Robust (content must be robust enough to be reliably interpreted by user agents and assistive technology).
Which WCAG level should my organisation target?
Most Australian organisations target WCAG 2.2 Level AA - the standard referenced by the Australian Human Rights Commission, the Digital Service Standard, and most government accessibility policies. Level A alone is rarely sufficient. Level AAA is aspirational and not always achievable for all content; it’s typically pursued only for specific content types where the criteria can be reliably met.
What’s new in WCAG 2.2?
The 9 new WCAG 2.2 criteria address modern accessibility issues including: focus appearance and obscured focus (2.4.11, 2.4.12, 2.4.13), drag movement alternatives (2.5.7), target size (2.5.8), accessible authentication (3.3.8, 3.3.9), consistent help (3.2.6), and redundant data entry (3.3.7). Several map directly to common real-world barriers and are now part of the standard most legislation references.