About WCAG

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 were published in December 2008 and are the most widely adopted set of accessibility standards worldwide. The guidelines are organized under four specific principles that form the acronym POUR: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Each principle is tied to a way that people interact with content, including: visual, hearing, motor, and cognitive. The graphic below gives some additional visual context to understand the acronym POUR and how it ties to the ways that people interact with content.

POUR acronym. Perceivable - visual and hearing. Operable - motor. Understandable - cognitive. Robust - motor and cognitive.

The WCAG is a set of technical guidelines that was initially developed to ensure websites are accessible. The guidelines provide specific details on how to make web content accessible and provides techniques to meet each guideline. Although WCAG was initially developed for web accessibility, the guidelines can be applied to other types of technology, such as documents and video content.

Each guideline within the WCAG has a defined level of conformance that is demonstrated with the letter A. There are three levels of conformance within WCAG: A (lowest), AA, and AAA (highest). Since UCF has adopted the AA level of conformance, both level A and AA are required by UCF.

The most current version of WCAG is 2.1, though UCF's guiding accessibility standard is WCAG 2.0 AA. UCF intentionally adopted an earlier standard so that the campus community initially has time to understand the requirements and can obtain professional development regarding how to make content accessible.

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