WCAG 2.2 compliance: where does your company stand?

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the international standard for web content accessibility, published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). They define verifiable technical criteria to make websites, apps, and documents usable by people with visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive disabilities — and more broadly by anyone navigating with assistive technologies, with a keyboard, or on mobile.The WCAG are organized around four principles: perceivable, operable, understandable, robust. For each principle there are specific success criteria, divided into three levels of conformance (A, AA, AAA).

WCAG 2.2, published by W3C in October 2023, adds new success criteria to WCAG 2.1 without changing the previous ones (only one criterion from 2.1, 4.1.1 Parsing, was removed as redundant). The additional 2.2 criteria mainly cover keyboard navigation, mobile devices, and cognitive support.The versions are backward compatible: meeting WCAG 2.2 automatically covers 2.1 and 2.0 as well. For this reason, the reference standard for new audits is 2.2.

In Italy and across Europe, the level of compliance required by law is AA. This is set out by the harmonized standard EN 301 549, which is the technical reference cited both by the European Accessibility Act (EAA), in force since June 28, 2025, and by the AgID Guidelines for the public administration and Italian obligated entities.Level A is the technical minimum but isn't enough for regulatory compliance. Level AAA is not mandatory: it is recommended for essential public, healthcare, and emergency services.

A complete verification combines three components: automated scanning for quantifiable criteria, expert review for qualitative criteria, and field testing with assistive technologies (screen readers such as NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver, keyboard navigation, mobile devices).Automated tools alone cover, on average, 20% to 40% of WCAG criteria. For the rest — and to produce documentation that holds up in case of a complaint — an audit run by certified specialists is required.

WCAG is the international technical standard from W3C. EN 301 549 is the European harmonized standard that incorporates WCAG and extends them to documents, mobile apps, and software more broadly. AgID in Italy and the European Accessibility Act at the EU level both refer to EN 301 549 as the technical compliance standard.In short: WCAG 2.2 Level AA compliance = EN 301 549 compliance = the foundation for AgID and EAA compliance. One audit, one set of documentation, all obligations covered.