About Simple WCAG
Why this platform exists
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 define 87 success criteria that make digital products usable by everyone. They cover everything from color contrast to keyboard navigation to error handling in forms.
The problem is that these criteria are written in normative, technical language designed for specification compliance — not for everyday understanding. A product manager, a support agent, a sales rep, or a QA tester shouldn't need to decode legal-style text to understand what makes their product accessible.
Simple WCAG translates each criterion into plain language. No jargon, no assumptions about technical background. If your team builds, sells, tests, or supports software that needs to be accessible — this platform is for you.
What it solves
Accessibility is a shared responsibility. But when only developers and designers can understand the rules, the rest of the team is left out of the conversation. That creates blind spots: support teams that can't identify accessibility issues in bug reports, product managers who can't prioritize accessibility work, and sales teams that can't confidently speak to compliance.
Simple WCAG bridges that gap. Each criterion becomes a card that anyone can read, understand, and act on — without opening the official specification.
Understanding conformance levels
WCAG defines three conformance levels. They're not a quality score — they indicate how strict or far-reaching a requirement is.
Minimum requirement
The baseline every accessible site must meet.
e.g. every image has alt text describing its content.
Recommended standard
The level most sites — and most legal requirements — target.
e.g. text has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background.
Highest level
The most rigorous level, rarely required in full across an entire site.
e.g. sign language interpretation is provided for all prerecorded video.
How to read a card
Every criterion card follows the same structure. Here's what each section means and why it's there.
Header
Shows the criterion number (e.g. SC 2.4.11), the conformance level (A, AA, or AAA — see Understanding conformance levelsabove), and the criterion name in both its simplified form and the original English name. The original WCAG text is displayed here as reference — this is the exact wording from the official specification.
In plain language
The criterion rewritten in everyday language. This is the core of Simple WCAG — a version that anyone on your team can read and immediately understand what the rule requires. No jargon, no normative language.
Why it matters
Connects the criterion to real people and real situations. This section explains who is affected when this rule is not met and what the impact looks like in practice. It turns an abstract rule into something your team can empathize with.
In practice
A concrete example pair: one situation where the criterion fails and one where it passes. No code, no CSS selectors, no DOM references — just scenarios that anyone can picture. A support agent reading this should be able to recognize the problem in a bug report.
Test it yourself
A simple action that anyone can perform right now, without installing any tool. This is what makes the card actionable — the reader doesn't just understand the rule, they can verify it themselves.
See also
Links to related criteria that are easy to confuse or that complement the current one. This helps avoid misidentifying which criterion applies to a specific issue.
Reference
All content on this platform is based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, a W3C Recommendation. The simplified explanations are interpretations for educational purposes — the official specification is the authoritative source.