Conformance

Reviewer's Note: As we publish this Working Draft of WCAG 2.0, the WCAG WG is in the midst of significantly changing the conformance scheme from previous drafts. This section outlines the conformance structure used throughout this document. Feedback, comments, and proposals are encouraged.

Checkpoints are divided into two groups:

Core
To conform to WCAG 2.0, the Required Success Criteria of Core Checkpoints must be satisfied.
Extended
These are additional checkpoints that may be reported in addition to Core conformance if the Required Success Criteria for a given Extended Checkpoint are satisfied.

Conformance Claims

  1. No conformance claim of any type may be made unless all Required Success Criteria have been met for all Core Checkpoints.
  2. If all of the Required Success Criteria for all Core Checkpoints have been met, then a conformance claim of "WCAG 2.0 Core" can be made.
  3. If all of the Required Success Criteria for all Core and Extended Checkpoints have been met, then a conformance claim of "WCAG 2.0 Extended" can be made.
  4. If all of the Required Success Criteria for all Core and some Extended Checkpoints have been met, then a conformance claim of "WCAG 2.0 Core+" can be made. Reviewer's note: should the claim be "Core+n" where "n" denotes the number of Extended Checkpoints that have been met?

For conformance claims of "WCAG 2.0 Core+," it is recommended (but not required) that sites report specifically which criteria they have met within each of the guidelines and checkpoints. WCAG 2.0 Techniques documents will provide examples that show how to report which success criteria have been met.

All conformance claims must include (at minimum):

  1. The version of the guidelines to which a conformance claim is made and the dated URI of the guidelines document.
  2. The scope of the conformance claim. The scope describes which parts of a site or application are included in the claim. Reviewer's Note:Should exclusions be allowed for certain types of content, such as third-party or copyrighted material that is being reprinted? How does one define scope? Is it an end-to-end process that the user should be able to complete? Is it a path through accessible content?
  3. The set of checkpoints being claimed (Core or Extended).
  4. The date the conformance claim was made.

Sites that conform to WCAG 1.0

Sites that currently conform to WCAG 1.0 that want to shift towards WCAG 2.0 will want to capitalize on past accessibility efforts. A qualified conformance statement could allow them this flexibility. For example, a conformance claim might include the following statement, "Materials created or modified before 24 April 2003 conform to WCAG 1.0. Materials created or modified on or after 24 April 2003 conform to WCAG 2.0."

Reviewer's Note: In some instances, the WCAG 2.0 Working Draft may be easier to conform to than the WCAG 1.0 Recommendation while other criteria might be harder to meet in WCAG 2.0 than in WCAG 1.0. The WCAG WG will consider the differences between WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0 conformance and offer advice to developers who currently conform to WCAG 1.0. This advice might take the form of a WCAG 1.0 conformance profile to WCAG 2.0 and information about migrating from WCAG 1.0 to WCAG 2.0. This advice is not yet available.