The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines have been developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). An international community working to develop web standards. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are a technical standard including 12 guidelines organized under four principles which I'll be quoting next. The current version, WCAG 2.0, was released in 2008. The first principle is that content should be perceivable: "The information and user interface components "must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive." It cannot be invisible to all of their senses. The second one is that user interface components and navigation must be operable meaning that all users must be able to operate this interface. The third one is that information and operation of user interface must be understandable. The fourth one is that content must be robust enough that: "it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents "including assistive technologies." Each principal has a list of guidelines, 12 in total. The following snapshot from the "WCAG2 at a Glance" lists them all. When creating an accessible website, you should: Provide text alternatives for non-text content. Provide captions and alternatives for multimedia. Create content presentable in different ways. Make it easier for users to see and hear content. Make all functionalities available from a keyboard. Give users enough time to read and use content. Do not use content that causes seizures. Help users navigate and find content. Make text readable and understandable. appearing and operating in predictable ways. Help users avoid and correct mistakes. Maximize compatibility with current and future user tools. Associated to each guideline are success criteria. This is what needs to be done to conform to this standard. And three levels of compliance with WCAG: A, AA, AAA. There is a specific quick guide on how to meet the standards on this website. Please have a look. Although achieving AAA would be ideal, compliancy with AA level is often accepted. For instance, as of January 2010 all new EUROPA websites have to be created in compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, level AA. You should choose your level based on the laws governing your area your audience needs and your resources. To check the accessibility level of your site, use an online checker as a first step. There are different tools on "Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools List". Let's have a look at a couple of these tools. The first example is WAVE. WAVE is a suite of tools that facilitate web accessibility evaluation. WAVE provides a visual representation of accessibility issues within a page. Errors, alerts, features, structural elements, HTML5 and contrast errors. Another tool is Achecker. It is an interactive, customizable web content accessibility checker. It allows you to create their own guidelines, and author your own accessibility checks. A final example is AccessMonitor used by the Portuguese Public Administration. and anyone can get a free report of a web page. You can create a sample of pages of a website to monitor and you can also monitor the new pages entered. The system has a dynamic logo that summarizes the results based on that sample.