WCAG

WCAG — Web Content Accessibility Guidelines — is the W3C standard for accessible web content. It groups requirements under four principles (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust) and three conformance levels (A, AA, AAA). AA is the practical and legal baseline for most jurisdictions, including the European Accessibility Act and the UK Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations.

For a design system, WCAG is the floor: every component, every colour combination, every state, every animation rule needs to clear it. Building accessibility into tokens and components once is dramatically cheaper than retrofitting it across products. Our piece on the European Accessibility Act covers the regulatory side.

Related: WAI-ARIA · Accessible design · Inclusive design · Component states