Quick answer: the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the international standard for making websites usable by people with disability. The current version is WCAG 2.2, and Level AA is the benchmark most organisations aim for. In Australia, the Disability Discrimination Act applies to websites, and the Australian Human Rights Commission recommends WCAG 2.2 Level AA as the minimum. Accessibility is easiest and cheapest when it’s built in from the start.
Around one in five Australians has a disability, and many more have temporary or situational limitations: a broken arm, a small phone screen in bright sunlight, or a slow connection. An accessible website works for all of them. It also tends to be clearer, faster and better structured, which helps everyone, including search engines.
What is WCAG?
WCAG is published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the body that develops web standards. It sets out testable success criteria, organised under four principles. Content must be:
- Perceivable: people can see or hear it, for example images have text alternatives and videos have captions.
- Operable: people can use it with a keyboard, a mouse, a touch screen or assistive technology.
- Understandable: text is clear, and forms and navigation behave predictably.
- Robust: it works reliably across browsers and assistive technologies such as screen readers.
Levels A, AA and AAA
Each success criterion has a level. Level A covers the essentials. Level AA adds the criteria most people rely on, such as sufficient colour contrast, and is the level referenced by most laws and policies. Level AAA is the highest level and isn’t usually required for a whole website, because some criteria can’t be met for all content.
What’s new in WCAG 2.2?
WCAG 2.2 became a W3C Recommendation in October 2023. It keeps almost everything from WCAG 2.1 and adds nine new success criteria. The new Level A and AA criteria cover:
- Focus not obscured: when you tab through a page, the item you’re on isn’t hidden behind sticky headers or pop-ups.
- Dragging movements: anything you can do by dragging can also be done another way, such as clicking.
- Target size: buttons and links are big enough, or spaced far enough apart, to tap accurately.
- Consistent help: help options such as contact details appear in the same place across pages.
- Redundant entry: people aren’t asked to re-enter information they’ve already provided in the same process.
- Accessible authentication: logging in doesn’t depend on memory or puzzle tests alone; for example, password managers and copy and paste must work.
WCAG 3.0 is in development, but it’s still a draft and years from replacing WCAG 2. Don’t wait for it: WCAG 2.2 is the standard to build to now.
Is website accessibility a legal requirement in Australia?
The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 makes it unlawful to discriminate against people with disability in providing goods and services, and that has long been accepted to include websites. In 2025 the Australian Human Rights Commission updated its guidance to recommend WCAG 2.2 Level AA as the minimum standard, and made clear it applies to digital services such as apps and online platforms as well as websites. Government agencies also have their own accessibility policies, and many organisations that work with government are asked to meet them too.
This isn’t legal advice, but the practical message is simple: if your website is how people find information or use your services, it should meet WCAG 2.2 Level AA.
Common accessibility problems
- Text with poor colour contrast, especially light grey on white.
- Images with missing or unhelpful alternative text.
- Headings used for styling rather than structure, which makes pages hard to navigate with a screen reader.
- Forms without proper labels or clear error messages.
- Menus, sliders and pop-ups that can’t be used with a keyboard.
- Videos without captions.
- Important information published only as PDFs.
- Links that just say “click here” or “read more”.
How to test your website: automated and manual
Accessibility testing needs both machines and people. Neither is enough on its own.
Automated testing
Free tools such as WAVE, axe and the Lighthouse checks built into Chrome scan a page in seconds. They’re good at finding problems that can be measured: low colour contrast, images with no alternative text, form fields without labels, missing page language and skipped heading levels. They’re quick, repeatable and useful for checking many pages, but they can only catch a portion of WCAG issues.
Manual testing
Many criteria need human judgement. A tool can tell you an image has alternative text, but not whether that text makes sense. Manual testing includes:
- Using the whole site with only a keyboard, and checking you can always see where you are on the page.
- Testing with a screen reader, such as NVDA on Windows or VoiceOver on Mac and iPhone.
- Zooming to 200% and 400% and checking nothing is cut off or overlapping.
- Checking that link text, headings, alternative text and error messages make sense in context.
- Checking captions, transcripts and that nothing relies on colour alone.
For organisations with formal obligations, a professional audit combining both gives you a clear list of issues and priorities.
Keeping content accessible after launch
A website can launch fully accessible and fall short within months, because accessibility depends on every page, image and document added later. Anyone who publishes content should:
- Use headings in order (Heading 2, then Heading 3) to structure the page, not just to make text bigger.
- Add meaningful alternative text to informative images, and leave it empty for purely decorative ones.
- Write link text that makes sense on its own, rather than “click here”.
- Caption videos and provide transcripts for audio.
- Avoid publishing important information only as PDFs, or make sure PDFs are properly tagged and accessible.
- Use simple tables with header rows, and never use tables for layout.
- Write in plain language, and never rely on colour alone to convey meaning.
Training your editors and building accessible defaults into your content management system makes this much easier. An accessibility statement on your website, explaining your commitment and how people can report problems, is good practice too.
Building accessibility in from the start
Fixing accessibility after launch is far more expensive than designing for it. Good accessible design starts with colour choices, layouts and components, and carries through development and testing.
Frequently asked questions
Can an accessibility overlay or plugin make my site compliant?
No. Overlay tools that promise instant compliance can’t fix problems in the underlying design and code, and some create new barriers. Accessibility needs to be built into the site itself.
Does accessibility help SEO?
Often, yes. Clear headings, descriptive links, text alternatives and well-structured content help search engines and AI tools understand your pages, as well as people using assistive technology.
Which WCAG level should we aim for?
Level AA of WCAG 2.2. It’s the level recommended by the Australian Human Rights Commission and expected by most policies and contracts.
How much does accessibility add to the cost of a website?
Very little when it’s planned from the start. Retrofitting an inaccessible site costs much more.
Need an accessible website?
We follow WCAG on every website we build, and where your organisation must meet a specific conformance level, we can build to it. We’ve worked with government, education and not-for-profit organisations across Australia for more than 25 years. Explore our website design and development services or talk to us about your site.
