WCAG 3 Introduction

Introduction

The WCAG documents explain how to make the web more accessible to people with disabilities. WCAG 3 applies to web content, apps, tools, publishing, and emerging technologies on the web.

W3C Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 3 is currently an incomplete draft that will change. WCAG 3 is intended to develop into a W3C Standard in a few years.

The current standard, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2), is introduced in the WCAG 2 Overview.

When WCAG 3 is fairly stable, we will provide guidance on transitioning from WCAG 2 to WCAG 3. The best way to prepare for WCAG 3 in the future, is to meet WCAG 2 Level A and AA success criteria now.

We will update this page regularly as work on the WCAG 3 Draft progresses.

Status: In-progress drafts

The WCAG 3 Draft includes potential guidelines, requirements, and conformance model that we are exploring. The final requirements in WCAG 3 will be different from this draft. Guidelines and requirements will be edited, added, combined, and removed. The conformance model may change.

September 2026 updates

In September 2026, we published updated drafts with the following changes.

• Explainer for WCAG 3 provides background information and describes the structure of the WCAG 3 Draft. We suggest reading the Explainer before reading WCAG 3. Changes include:
  • Conformance section in Explainer
• WCAG 3 Working Draft includes potential guidelines, requirements, and assertions that have progressed to Developing status. Those that are still Exploratory are available in the Editor’s Draft. Changes include:
  • Conformance section in WCAG 3 Draft
  • Guidelines, requirements, and assertions

Review questions

We encourage review and comment, particularly on the conformance model.

• The proposed conformance approach sets a single conformance level and uses tags to provide reporting tiers below and above that level. Does this improve upon the conformance approach in previous drafts?
• An alternate conformance approach proposal in the Explainer under “Alternative approach - Scoring” uses the tags to generate a score above and below conformance. What pros and cons do you see for each approach?
• In your role, how would you leverage reporting tiers leading to conformance or above conformance?

To comment

To comment, please open new issues in the WCAG 3 GitHub repository. If it’s not feasible for you to use GitHub, email your comments to public-agwg-comments@w3.org

Please create separate GitHub issues or email messages for each topic (rather than putting multiple topics in a single issue or email).

Section status

Each normative section has a status that indicates how far along in the development process this section is, how ready it is for experimental adoption, and what kind of feedback we are looking for.

• Placeholder
• Exploratory
• Developing
• Refining
• Mature

For more information on these status indicators, see the Explainer section Current Process for Creating WCAG 3.0.

Research needed

Some of the guidelines and requirements are marked with “Needs additional research”. We are particularly interested in assistance identifying or conducting research to support or refute them.

WCAG 3 Draft approach

Some similar, some different

Goals for WCAG 3 include:

• be easier to understand
• cover more user needs, including more needs of people with cognitive disabilities
• be flexible to apply to:
  • different types of content, apps, and tools
  • different organizational situations
  • future technology changes

WCAG 3 is similar to previous versions in some ways. It has similar:

• goal of providing guidance on making web content and apps accessible to people with disabilities
• fundamental and specific accessibility requirements

WCAG 3 is very different from previous versions in some ways. It has:

• different structure
• different conformance model
• broader scope, beyond just web content

WCAG 3 name

The name of WCAG 3 is different from WCAG 2:

• WCAG 3 is W3C Accessibility Guidelines
• WCAG 2 is Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

“W3C Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 3.0” was chosen:

• because of wide-spread familiarity with the “WCAG” acronym
• to encompass the broader scope beyond “content”

Structure

For a description of the structure of the WCAG 3 Working Draft, see the Explainer section WCAG 3.0 Structure.

Conformance approach

The conformance model is the way to determine and communicate how well content, a website, an app, etc. meets WCAG.

The conformance model in WCAG 3 will be very different from WCAG 2. It is intended to:

• be more flexible for organizations (that is, owners and developers of websites, apps, tools, etc.)
• encourage more accessible user experiences

Developing and vetting the conformance model is a large portion of the work AG needs to complete over the next few years.

Information on the draft conformance model is in:

• Explainer section Conformance approach
• WCAG 3 Working Draft section Conformance

Development

Timeline

WCAG 3 is not expected to be a completed W3C standard for a few more years.

WCAG 3 will not supersede WCAG 2 and WCAG 2 will not be deprecated for at least several years after WCAG 3 is finalized.

The Accessibility Guidelines Working Group provides a projected WCAG 3 schedule.

Who develops WCAG 3

The WCAG technical documents are developed by the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AG WG) (previously under the Silver Task Force) with the Silver Community Group. These Groups are part of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). You can learn about the development process from How WAI Develops Accessibility Standards through the W3C Process: Milestones and Opportunities to Contribute.

We welcome your comments on WCAG 3 Working Drafts. The best way to provide feedback is by opening new GitHub issues. Alternatively, email public-agwg-comments@w3.org

Opportunities for contributing more directly to WCAG and other WAI work are introduced in Participate in WAI.