The standard almost every accessibility rule points at

What it is

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are a technical standard published by the W3C describing how to make web content usable by people with disabilities. Version 2.2 is current, and Level AA is the conformance level regulators, procurement teams and courts generally treat as the target.

Does it apply to you

• A law or regulation names it. Public-sector rules in the United States and the European accessibility regime both point at WCAG, and the Department of Justice guidance on the ADA describes it as the widely used standard.
• A customer contract requires it. Enterprise procurement and government contracts increasingly ask for a conformance statement, and that statement is about WCAG.
• You want a defensible answer. Because the standard is testable, conforming to it is something you can demonstrate rather than assert.

What being wrong costs

WCAG itself creates no liability. What creates liability is the law or contract that references it, and the practical consequence of falling short is that you have no objective answer when somebody asks how your site was assessed. Conformance claims are also made at a level and a date, so a claim that was accurate a year ago says nothing about the site today.

What it demands

• Perceivable: text alternatives for images, captions for media, structure that survives when styling is removed, and enough contrast to read.
• Operable: everything reachable by keyboard, enough time to complete tasks, no content that flashes at rates known to trigger seizures, and a visible indication of focus.
• Understandable: predictable navigation, labeled inputs, and errors that explain how to fix them.
• Robust: markup that assistive technology can interpret, including names, roles and values for anything interactive.
• Version 2.2 added criteria covering focus visibility and appearance, dragging alternatives, target size, consistent help, and reducing the need to re-enter or remember information.

What WebSpark does

• Components ship with focus indication, keyboard operation, target size and reflow built in, so a page inherits conformance from the components it is made of.
• Automated testing runs over every route on every change, and publishing waits for a pass.
• Contrast is measured for every declared color pairing rather than sampled, at the 4.5:1 and 3:1 thresholds the standard sets.

What you can show

• A dated monthly record naming every route tested and every finding.
• An accessibility statement naming the standard and the level, with known gaps listed.

What stays yours

• Content you add outside the platform: PDFs, third-party embeds, or a booking widget somebody dropped into a page.
• Judgement calls automation cannot make, such as whether alternative text describes what the image is actually for.