Re: WCAG 3.0: Conformance model - a different view

Hi Sailesh, Gregg,

Are you talking about policy makers within companies or within governments, eg those who prepare legislation? 

I'd say the latter type of policy makers do not make policies about specific digital content, they set a bar for what accessible enough looks like in general, that then applies to a set of organisations, with or without consequences. As AGWG, I feel it's our remit to make the standard such that a bar can easily be set (by legislators) to cover a wide range of functional needs and is somewhat realistic to test and conform to.

If I understand your proposal correctly you suggest organisations/enterprises should choose their own bar? 

Re assertions: they aren't untestable or unverifyable, but they are different from foundation/supplemental requirements in the sense that they are much more broad and not specifically about content, like 'we have X goal' or 'we do monthly usability tests'. They cover things that are useful and meaningful, and can to some extent be tested, even if not by anyone in the public (one can, with permission, into the assertor's office, and witness the usability tests and then write down that the thing they assert they do actually exists in reality). Agreed with you both that this isn't really conformance as such. But I expect them to be useful and meaningful.

Best,
Hidde 

> On 14 Nov 2025, at 20:43, Sailesh Panchang <sailesh.panchang@deque.com> wrote:
> 
> 1. First the list of functional needs need to be finalized and requirements (foundational level / supplemental level) need to be mapped to these needs.
> 2. The goal is to help policy makers determine  if WCAG 3 compliance has helped to make digital  content accessible  in those various settings identified as functional needs. 
> Like in WCAG 2.X an enterprise may choose to meet only Level A criteria (I know the recommended standard is Level AA) or Level AA or Level AAA, going forward, organizations should have the liberty to meet only foundational level requirements or both foundational and supplemental level requirements as they choose. 
> The bronze, silver and gold route  for conformance level may become unnecessary IMO. With that, the complication of associating a percentage against those levels becomes redundant. Though one can associate some rationale with the percentages for bronze, silver and gold, at the end there will still be an element of arbitrariness to the process.
> 
> 3. So consider a conformance statement  along the lines of a VPAT with one important caveat . It can be set out  in a format that corresponds to the organization's accessibility goal: only foundational level if that is the choice or both foundational and supplemental levels.
> The caveat: the conformance statement only tabulates all functional needs as identified for WCAG 3.0. Against every need there is one value: Satisfied / partly Satisfied / Not Satisfied. 
> In other words this statement will not list all the requirements like a VPAT does but simply the functional needs and state whether the requirements for the selected level have been met or not based on the established mapping.
> Thanks,
> Sailesh Panchang  
> Principal Accessibility Consultant
> 
> Email: sailesh.panchang@deque.com <mailto:sailesh.panchang@deque.com>
> Deque Systems Inc | - Accessibility for Good | www.deque.com <http://www.deque.com/>
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