They are a set of recommendations for making Web content more accessible, primarily for people with disabilities—but also for all user agents, including highly limited devices, such as mobile phones.
[6] Version 8 of the Unified Web Site Accessibility Guidelines, published in 1998, served as the starting point for the W3C's WCAG 1.0.
In the following years new versions were published intended to solicit feedback from accessibility experts and members of the disability community.
[9] Due to the many amendments that were necessary, WCAG 2.0 was published again as a concept proposal on 17 May 2007, followed by a second "Last Call Working Draft" on 11 December 2007.
WCAG 3.0 is a draft undergoing significant development efforts, and the expected release date as an official recommendation is not defined.
[27] In January 2017, the US Access Board approved a final rule to update Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
[28][29] In December, 2021 the 11th circuit court vacated a sometimes-cited case from 2017, which had referred to the WCAG guidelines as "industry standard".
On April 24, 2024, the Federal Register published the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) final rule updating its regulations for Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
[31] Directive 2016/2102[32] requires websites and mobile applications of public sector (i.e. government) bodies to conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA.
[34] The European Accessibility Act (EAA) will become legally applicable in EU member states on 28 June 2025.
The EAA will require websites, apps, ebooks, ecommerce platforms, PDFs and others to conform to WCAG 2.1 AA criteria within the EU.
The UK government published Understanding accessibility requirements for public sector bodies[36] to guide compliance.
[37] Regulations under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 require that public web content of certain Ontario organizations complies with WCAG 2.0 Level AA.
The Israeli standards are somewhat more lenient, reflecting the current technical difficulties in providing such captions and texts in Hebrew.