WCAG2ICT Overview

Introduction

Guidance on Applying WCAG 2 to Non-Web Information and Communications Technologies (WCAG2ICT) describes how the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) can be applied to non-web information and communications technologies (ICT), including documents and software. It supports harmonized accessibility solutions across a range of technologies.

Background: WCAG 2.0 is a normative web standard — it is a W3C Recommendation and an ISO International Standard (ISO/IEC 40500:2012) — that explains how to make web content (including static web pages, dynamic web applications, etc.) more accessible to people with disabilities. WCAG 2.1 was published in 2018 and WCAG 2.2 was published in 2023. The WCAG Overview introduces the WCAG documents and links to supporting resources such as WCAG 2.0 at a Glance and How to Meet WCAG 2 (Quick Reference).

This document: WCAG2ICT is a W3C Group Note that is informative — it is not normative and does not set requirements. It provides guidance on the application of WCAG 2 principles, guidelines, and success criteria to non-web documents and software. WCAG2ICT was developed to provide an authoritative interpretation of how WCAG 2 can apply in different contexts. For information on the scope of WCAG2ICT, see the Introduction section of WCAG2ICT.

Update in progress: The previous WCAG2ICT 2.0 Note covered WCAG 2.0. The 2024 WCAG2ICT Note will cover WCAG 2.0, 2.1, and 2.2. The WCAG2ICT Editor’s Draft may include proposed updates that are not yet approved and published.

Scope: WCAG2ICT does not include techniques for how to meet WCAG success criteria in specific technologies. More information is in the Excluded from Scope section.

Who WCAG2ICT is for

WCAG2ICT is for ICT managers, ICT developers, policy makers, and others wanting to understand how WCAG 2 can be applied to non-web documents and software.

What is in WCAG2ICT

WCAG2ICT provides:

• Overall context for applying WCAG 2 to non-web documents and software.
• Guidance on applying the WCAG principles, guidelines, and Levels A and AA success criteria to non-web documents and software.
• Key Terms related to applying WCAG 2 to non-web documents and software.
• Comments on the definitions in the WCAG 2 Glossary.
• Comments on conformance.
• Background information on some topics.

WCAG2ICT includes material from the WCAG 2 standard to provide context, along with specific guidance related to non-web ICT, formatted as follows:

• WCAG 2 principles, guidelines, and success criteria — the exact text from the WCAG 2 standard. These are quoted fragments, visually styled in pale yellow boxes.
• Guidance on applying each success criteria to non-web documents and software. These are visually styled in pale blue boxes with a heading on a dark blue background that starts with “Additional Guidance…”.

Technical document format

WCAG2ICT follows the W3C format for technical reports, which has several sections at the beginning, including links to different versions, editors, abstract, and status.

Who develops WCAG2ICT

WCAG2ICT is developed by the WCAG2ICT Task Force, provided for public review, and approved by the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AG WG), which is part of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

Comments

If you have any comments on the Additional Guidance sections of WCAG2ICT, you can open a new GitHub issue. It is free to create a GitHub account. Please open a separate GitHub issue for each topic, rather than commenting on multiple topics in a single issue.

If it is not feasible for you to use GitHub, you can put your comments in the body of an e-mail message and send them to: public-wcag2ict-comments@w3.org.

If you have comments on the wording taken from WCAG 2 or Understanding WCAG 2, please read the Instructions for Commenting on WCAG 2 Documents.