Recent discussion of WCAG A, AA, and AAA: The Graduated Scale

Fazio raised questions a while back about the three levels of conformance,
A, AA and AAA, and how they are assessed. Pardon if this is duplicated.
WCAG's assessors of greater to lesser conformance can be summarized as
follows (full text below):


   - *Essential*: SC not met? AT won't work.
   - *Satisfiable*: SC can be met by all relevant content.
   - *Reasonable*: Skill to meet the SC achievable in one week's time.
   - *Limits imposed*: The SC limits on look & feel and/or function
   - *Workaroundable*: Workarounds exist, if the SC fails

WCAG does not provide a mapping of these qualitative assessors to the A, AA
and AAA levels.

Full text:

The URL,
https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/conformance#conformance-claims

Full quote:
Heading: Understanding Levels of Conformance


The success criteria were assigned to one of the three levels of
conformance by the working group after taking into consideration a wide
range of interacting issues. Some of the common factors evaluated when
setting the level included:

   - whether the success criterion is *essential* (in other words, if the
   success criterion isn't met, then even assistive technology can't make
   content accessible)
   - whether it is possible to satisfy the success criterion for *all Web
   sites and types of content* that the success criterion would apply to
   (e.g., different topics, types of content, types of Web technology)
   - whether the success criterion requires skills that could *reasonably
   be achieved by the content creators* (that is, the knowledge and skill
   to meet the success criterion could be acquired in a week's training or
   less)
   - whether the success criterion would impose limits on the "look & feel"
   and/or function of the Web page. (limits on function, presentation, freedom
   of expression, design or aesthetic that the success criterion might place
   on authors)
   - whether there are no workarounds if the success criterion is not met




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