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WCAG 2.1 AA, translated

WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) is the standard nearly every demand letter, court filing, and regulation points at, with "2.1 AA" as the level that's become the practical benchmark. The document itself is dense. The ideas aren't. Everything in it hangs on four words.

Perceivable: people can take in your content

Images have text descriptions. Videos have captions. Text has enough contrast to read. Nothing is conveyed by color alone ("required fields are in red" fails; "required fields are in red and marked *" passes). Content survives being zoomed to 200%.

Operable: people can use your controls

Everything works by keyboard alone. Focus is visible so you can see where you are. Nothing traps you. Users get enough time, nothing flashes dangerously, and pages have titles, sensible link text ("View pricing", not "click here"), and more than one way to find things.

Understandable: people can predict and recover

The page declares its language. Navigation stays consistent. Forms label their fields, explain their errors ("Email must include @", not "Error 22"), and let users fix mistakes before something irreversible happens.

Robust: assistive tech can parse it

Clean, valid code using elements for what they're for: buttons that are buttons, headings that are headings. Custom widgets announce their name, role, and state so a screen reader can drive them.

What "AA" means

WCAG has three levels: A (bare minimum), AA (the standard courts and regulators reference), and AAA (aspirational, rarely required in full). When anyone says "WCAG compliant" without a level, ask which one; when a letter cites your site, it almost certainly means AA.

The practical takeaway

You don't need to memorize 50 success criteria. You need to know where your site fails them, ranked by what matters. That's what an audit is: WCAG applied to your actual pages, translated into a fix list.