If you run a website, WCAG affects you. It sits behind virtually every accessibility law in force today, from the US Americans with Disabilities Act to the EU's European Accessibility Act. And yet most website owners have never had it explained in plain English.
Every WCAG requirement traces back to one of four core principles, known as POUR. Think of these as the four questions every website needs to be able to answer yes to.
Can people take in the information on your site? This covers things like alt text on images so that a person using a screen reader knows what they are looking at, captions on video for someone who is deaf or hard of hearing, and sufficient color contrast so that a person with low vision or color blindness can read your text without straining.
Can people use your site? Everything on a website needs to work without a mouse. A person navigating by keyboard only, or using switch access due to a motor impairment, needs to be able to reach every button, link, and form field. Content should not flash in ways that could trigger seizures in people with epilepsy.
Does your site make sense? Text needs to be readable. Pages need to behave predictably. Forms need clear labels so that someone with a cognitive disability or anxiety does not get lost or confused. Error messages need to explain what went wrong and how to fix it, not just flash red and leave people guessing.
Does your site work across different tools and technologies? A person using a screen reader, a braille display, or voice control software needs your site to function just as reliably as it does for someone using a standard browser. That requires clean, standards-compliant code underneath the surface.
Covers the most critical barriers and is the bare minimum for accessibility. It is a starting point, but not sufficient for legal compliance in most markets.
The standard required by virtually every global accessibility law. It covers the widest range of disabilities and real-world use cases, and is the target for all websites.
The highest level of conformance, going beyond what most laws require. It is not always feasible for every type of content, but is recommended for platforms where accessibility is the primary purpose.
WCAG is a technical standard, not a law in itself. But it is the standard that accessibility laws around the world point to. All of the following reference WCAG Level AA as the required standard.
One important point: many of these laws apply based on where your users are, not where your business is based. If people in the EU can access your website, the European Accessibility Act applies to you regardless of where you are headquartered.
Compliance is measured against specific success criteria. At Level AA, your website needs to meet requirements like these. Many of these issues can be identified with automated scanning tools. Others, particularly interaction-based and cognitive barriers, require manual testing with real assistive technologies.
All images have descriptive alt text so that a person using a screen reader understands what they are seeing, not just "image123.jpg."
Text has a color contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background so that people with low vision or color blindness can read it comfortably.
Every function on the site works via keyboard alone for users with motor impairments, repetitive strain injuries, or who simply prefer keyboard navigation.
Form fields have clear, programmatically associated labels so that someone using a screen reader knows exactly what they are being asked to fill in.
Pages have descriptive titles and a logical heading structure so that people navigating by landmark or heading can find what they need quickly.
Error messages explain what went wrong and how to correct it, not just flag that something is wrong.
Videos have captions and audio descriptions for people who are deaf, hard of hearing, or who process information better through text.
Interactive elements have a visible focus indicator so that keyboard users always know where they are on the page.
Touch targets are large enough to tap accurately on mobile, which matters especially for people with motor impairments or tremors.
Real people are being left out right now. 71% of people with disabilities will leave an inaccessible website without ever telling you why. They do not file a complaint or send an email. They just leave. That means a person with dyslexia who cannot read your text clearly, a keyboard-only user whose focus gets trapped in a navigation menu, or someone with low vision who cannot distinguish your text from its background is quietly walking away from your site every single day.
These are not edge cases. With 1 in 4 people living with a disability and 1 in 5 being neurodivergent, a significant portion of anyone's audience is affected.
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The EAA became enforceable in June 2025. ADA Title III litigation continues at pace. Laws in Canada, the UK, and across the EU are tightening. Websites of every kind, not just large enterprises, are in scope.
Addressing accessibility barriers now supports your efforts to reduce legal risk before enforcement catches up with you.
Captions help people watching video in noisy environments. High contrast helps people reading in bright sunlight. Keyboard navigation helps power users who are faster without a mouse. Clear error messages help anyone who makes a typo on a form. Many of the improvements that help people with disabilities make the experience better for everyone
Accessible websites are better built websites. Clean semantic code, descriptive alt text, logical heading structures, and meaningful link text are all things search engines and AI crawlers reward. Improving accessibility and improving organic search performance often go hand in hand.
Make your Shopify store instantly more inclusive, compliant, SEO-optimized, and conversion-friendly.
Your always-on accessibility developer that fixes WCAG gaps in your code to make your site work with assistive tech.
Your helpful online store assistant that turns browsers into buyers with accessibility features that show you care.
EnableAll has been a phenomenal partner in helping us secure our digital storefront. Their engineering team audited our theme and provided manual, surgical code fixes to resolve the root issues. The communication was fast, transparent, and highly technical. I highly recommend them if you need genuine accessibility remediation and proactive support.
EnableAll has it been designed perfectly. Easy to set up, intuitive front end for users and a very receptive helpful team that helped me get the best performance out of the App. I finally found a solution and Team that can deliver what we need. They have made compliance easy.
EnableAll took a huge pressure off of us, and because it was helping with our alt text and our SEO ranking, we knew that we had an extra little uplift in the reach that we had online. Such an easy plug and play option to increase accessibility!
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It’s definitely given me peace of mind, and it’s helped convert customers. It’s made it easier for people to decide whether or not they want to spend their money with us.
Having the app on our website is a no brainer partly due to selling into the EU and US where it is now a requirement but also it helps customers navigate our website and makes shopping easier.
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Easy to set up, intuitive front end for users and a very receptive helpful team that helped me get the best performance out of the app. I finally found a solution and team that can deliver what we need. They have made compliance easy. Thank you everyone involved at EnableAll.
This has helped us expand sales to the USA with more confidence and peace of mind. And our customers love it, we’re confident it improves experience and conversion. Our site’s stayed fast compared to other tools we’ve tried and our SEO scores have improved too!
WCAG stands for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. They are published by the W3C and define the technical standard for making digital content accessible to people with disabilities.
The four principles are known as POUR: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust. Every success criterion in WCAG maps to one of these four. A website that fails any one of them does not meet the standard.
WCAG 2.2 Level AA. It is the current version, and because each version is backward compatible, meeting 2.2 means you also meet 2.1 and 2.0. Most current laws reference WCAG 2.1, so 2.2 gives you a useful buffer as regulations continue to develop.
In most major markets, yes. WCAG 2.1 Level AA is explicitly referenced by ADA Title II in the US, the European Accessibility Act, the UK Equality Act, AODA in Canada, and others. Non-compliance creates real legal exposure for websites of all types and sizes. We recommend taking independent legal advice to understand your specific obligations.
Yes. The EAA applies based on where your users are, not where your business is registered. If people in any EU member state can access your website, the EAA applies to you. It has been enforceable since June 28, 2025.
Level A removes the most critical barriers and is the baseline, but it is not enough for legal compliance in most markets. Level AA is the standard virtually all accessibility laws require and is the right target for most organizations. Level AAA goes beyond legal requirements and is not always achievable for every type of content.
A thorough check combines automated scanning with manual testing using real assistive technologies. Automated tools are good at catching structural issues quickly. Manual testing catches the interaction and cognitive barriers that automated tools miss. You can generate a free accessibility statement for your site using the EnableAll accessibility statement generator, or book a demo to see how EnableAll assesses and addresses issues on your specific store.
Many of the most common WCAG failures, including contrast issues, missing alt text, unlabelled form fields, can be resolved automatically without touching your codebase. That is what EnableAll's Code-Fix does. More complex issues, such as customer interactive components, may benefit from specialist support.
Yes. Many WCAG requirements, including proper alt text, logical heading structure, descriptive link text, and clean semantic markup, are also signals that search engines use to understand and rank content. Accessible websites tend to be faster, better structured, and more readable for both people and search crawlers. The two goals reinforce each other.
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