Welcome to your daily frequent11y newsletter, brought to you by @ChrisBAshton. This is a special WCAG 3.0 issue, in which I’ve read and summarised a two-parter by deque.

Part 1: What to Expect From The First Public Working Draft of WCAG 3.0

• WCAG 3.0 is designed to be easier to learn than its predecessors. Instead of ‘success criteria’, we have ‘outcomes’. The former concern the content of a web page, and are evaluated as either a pass or a fail. The latter are centered around user needs, and are scored from 0 (very poor) to 4 (excellent).
• Instead of using levels A, AA and AAA, WCAG 3.0 uses bronze, silver and gold. The current working draft of WCAG 3.0 only focuses on the bronze level, which is roughly equivalent to WCAG 2.1 A and AA compliance. WCAG 3.0 is not likely to be published as a W3C recommendation until 2023 at the earliest.
• WCAG 3.0 has a concept of ‘critical errors’, an example of which would be if an image missing alternative text prevents a user from completing a task. Sites which contain even a single critical error will not conform to any level of WCAG 3.0 compliance.

Part 2: First Public Working Draft of WCAG 3.0, A Brief History

• WCAG 1.0 was published in 1998, and was designed to help developers write accessible HTML.
• The W3C released the first working draft of WCAG 2.0 in 2001 and was designed to be applicable to all manner of competing web technologies including Flash. It was eventually published as a recommendation in 2008.
• WCAG 2.0 was republished as an ISO standard (ISO/IEC 40500) in 2012, making it easier for governments around the world to use it in law.
• In February 2017, the first draft of WCAG 2.1 was published, to address gaps in WCAG 2.0 concerning cognitive disabilities, low vision, and mobile devices. It was published in 2018.
• The first draft of WCAG 2.2 was published in February 2020 and is expected to become a recommendation this summer.
• WCAG 3.0 began life as “Project Silver” in 2016.

As a bonus, you may be interested in An insider look at WCAG 3.0, by Jeanne Spellman, co-leader of the WCAG 3.0 project.

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