You Probably Already Know You Should Care About This
If you run a website or digital service — for a government department, an NFP, a school, a business — you’ve probably heard the words “accessibility” and “WCAG” in the same sentence. You may have nodded and moved on.
This article is for the moment you decide to stop nodding.
WCAG 2.2 is the current standard for web accessibility. It isn’t new legislation (in Australia, that’s the Disability Discrimination Act and the Web Accessibility National Transition Strategy), but it is the internationally recognised benchmark for what an accessible website actually looks like. Understanding it doesn’t require a developer. It requires caring enough to find out what your users are up against.
What Is WCAG, and Why Should a Non-Technical Person Care?
WCAG stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. It’s published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) — the international body that sets web standards — and it exists because the web is, for a significant portion of the population, genuinely hard to use.
Think about who this affects. People who use screen readers because they’re blind or have low vision. People who can’t use a mouse because of a motor impairment, and navigate entirely by keyboard. People with cognitive disabilities who need clear language, predictable layouts, and no flashing content. People with hearing loss who can’t access audio without captions.
In Australia, around one in five people live with some form of disability. Add older users whose eyesight and fine motor control have changed, people using slow connections, people who speak English as a second language — and the number of people who benefit from an accessible website is much larger than most organisations assume.
WCAG is the framework for getting this right. It’s organised into three conformance levels: A (minimum), AA (standard), and AAA (enhanced). When people talk about accessibility compliance, they almost always mean WCAG 2.x Level AA.
What’s New in WCAG 2.2?
WCAG 2.2 was published in October 2023. It adds nine new success criteria to the previous standard (2.1), most of which address the experience of people using mobile devices, people with cognitive disabilities, and people who navigate without a mouse.
Here are the ones most likely to affect your organisation:
Focus Appearance (2.4.11 and 2.4.12) When someone navigates your site using a keyboard — no mouse — they need to be able to see which element is currently in focus. This was technically required before, but vaguely specified. 2.2 makes it concrete: the focus indicator needs to be large enough, and high-contrast enough, to actually be visible. Many websites that considered themselves accessible fail this one.
Dragging Movements (2.5.7) If your site or app requires a user to drag something — a slider, a sortable list, a map — you must also provide a way to do the same action with a single click or tap. People with motor impairments often can’t reliably control drag gestures.
Target Size (2.5.8) Buttons, links, and form controls need to be large enough to tap accurately on a touch screen. The minimum is 24×24 CSS pixels, with exceptions. This matters most on mobile — small tap targets are a significant barrier for people with tremors or limited dexterity.
Consistent Help (3.2.6) If you offer a help mechanism — a chat widget, a contact link, a support phone number — it needs to appear in the same place on every page. People with cognitive disabilities often need help finding help, and can’t reliably locate it if it moves.
Accessible Authentication (3.3.8) CAPTCHAs and memory-based login tests are a significant barrier for people with cognitive disabilities. This criterion requires that authentication doesn’t rely on puzzles, transcription, or memorisation — unless a fallback is provided. If you have a login flow, this is worth checking.
Redundant Entry (3.3.7) If a user has already provided information in one step of a multi-step process, don’t ask for it again unless there’s a reason. Repeating form fields is frustrating for everyone, but especially for people with cognitive disabilities or limited mobility who find typing difficult.
What This Means for Your Organisation
If you’re a government department or council, the expectation of WCAG 2.2 AA compliance is clear and increasing. Australian government digital guidance aligns with the international standard. If your site doesn’t meet it, you have a legal exposure and — more importantly — you’re failing a portion of the public you’re there to serve.
If you’re an NFP or a health or disability services organisation, the gap between your values and your website can be significant if accessibility hasn’t been prioritised. It’s one of the first things the communities you work with will notice. An accessible website signals that you mean what you say.
If you’re a business or start-up, the accessibility argument is partly ethical and partly commercial. Inaccessible products exclude real customers. They also carry legal risk — globally, accessibility litigation is increasing, and Australia is not exempt.
What You Should Actually Do
Getting a WCAG 2.2 AA-compliant website doesn’t require starting from scratch. Most organisations already have the majority of it covered — the gaps are usually specific and fixable.
A practical starting point is an accessibility assessment against the WCAG 2.2 AA criteria. This will tell you what’s working, what isn’t, and what the priority fixes are. From there, a remediation plan lets you work through the findings in order of impact without doing everything at once.
The other thing worth doing is building accessibility into your process going forward, rather than treating it as a one-off audit. That means considering accessibility at the design stage, not just before launch.
We help organisations understand where they stand against WCAG 2.2 AA, provide recommendations for what to fix, and design digital experiences that get it right from the start. If you want to know where your organisation is at, get in touch.
Jackie Streit and Jasper Streit are the founders of The Toy Cartel, an accessible design and strategic creative agency based in Sydney.