2025-07-10
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#design trends#ui design
Daniel Schwarz
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Jul 10, 2025 ⋅ 8 min read

Why I don’t trust WCAG 2.2 and what I’m hoping for from 3.0

Daniel Schwarz I write about and advocate for better UX, accessibility, front-end code, and product management for industry leaders such as Adobe, Wix, CSS-Tricks, InVision, UXPin, Creative Bloq, Net Magazine, Web Designer Magazine, and so many more. Ex-design blog editor at SitePoint and Toptal.

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One Reply to "Why I don’t trust WCAG 2.2 and what I’m hoping for from 3.0"

  1. I appreciate that you feel WCAG 2 doesn’t go far enough, but I think this post fails to recognize *when* WCAG 2 was written and *how* consensus happens. It also assumes WCAG 3 will somehow achieve more and avoid manipulation of its scoring model.

    To very briefly address each of your complaints with WCAG 2:

    1. The contrast algorithm is *not* good, but was written for a different technology / color space.

    2. Alt text has to “serve the equivalent purpose,” so I think you have misread 1.1.1 (your examples would right).

    3. Visible icon labels is as much UX as anything, and can complicate UIs. This should not be a requirement. The mobile navigation trigger on this site, for example, would fail in that model.

    4. Another misunderstanding. WCAG says captions (a pre-existing term of art) are “synchronized” and further defines how captions would be correct. WCAG doesn’t mandate transcripts, but a media alternative. Transcripts are also a pre-existing term of art (else it is not a transcript).

    5. Sign language is unlikely to be required in WCAG 3 (because consensus).

    6. Yes, focus indicators can be crap.

    7. Bypass blocks does not recommend links *or* ARIA; it’s not an either/or. That’s a misunderstanding of Techniques.

    8. I encourage you to read the history of 2.5.8 and decide if the same stakeholders would make target sizes bigger or mandatory in WCAG 3.

    I’m not going to comment on the aspirational WCAG 3 stuff since it rehashes the WCAG 2 complaints. As it is, I think the conformance model might end up being a disappointment in practice if the author feels strongly all the their WCAG 2 concerns must be addressed.

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