Day 74: Striving for WCAG Level AAA, Part 3

Published on 12 Feb 2019

• journal
• resources
• was
• specifications
• wcag

Today I spent time with the Understandable Level AAA criteria. Some of the Readable Guideline's success criteria (SC) seem like a nice effort to make for everyone who comes to your site. However, I can see how that can take a lot more communication between content creator and developer to provide the necessary additional content or appropriate code to implement sufficient techniques correctly.

• Read Understandable's Level AAA success criteria on How to Meet WCAG 2 site.
• Mapped success criteria to failures of those criteria.

There are 7 Level AAA criteria under Understandable, none of which are new to 2.1:

• 3.1.3 Unusual words
• 3.1.4 Abbreviations
• 3.1.5 Reading level
• 3.1.6 Pronunciation
• 3.2.5 Change on request
• 3.3.5 Help
• 3.3.6 Error prevention (all)

There are 0 Level AAA criteria under Robust.

SC 3.1.3 Unusual words Fail: Specialized words are used in the content, but no definitions are provided. Providing definitions or a glossary would greatly benefit people with cognitive, language, and learning disabilities.

SC 3.1.4 Abbreviations Fail: Abbreviations are present, but no expanded form is available on the page, in assumption that the user already knows what it means. This can create confusion for people with cognitive issues or those using a screen magnifier (which challenges contextual cues).

SC 3.1.5 Reading level Fail: No summary or additional visuals are provided for reading level below 8th grade. This may inhibit people with reading disabilities or English as a second language from understanding your content.

SC 3.1.6 Pronunciation Fail: No audio or text pronunciation is provided for difficult words. This hinders people who use screen readers and people with reading disabilities from fully understanding the content provided.

SC 3.2.5 Change on request Fail: A new window opens when the user clicks on a link without the user expecting the change of focus to a new window. Related to SC 3.2.1 and SC 3.2.2. This greatly affects people who use screen readers.

SC 3.3.5 Help Fail: A form supplies no detailed instructions about data format or additional information necessary to submit the form. Leaving out required information and helpful tips can hinder people with visual, cognitive, or motor disabilities form submitting the form correctly.

SC 3.3.6 Error prevention (all) Fail: A form that is not a legal, financial, or data transaction fails to provide a reversible, review, or confirmation step when error is possible. Related to SC 3.3.4. This may affect people with reading or motor disabilities.