Recent changes to the WCAG 2.2 SC 2.1.1 Understanding page

Completely by accident, I recently found that the WCAG 2.2 SC 2.1.1 Understanding page was modified on 04 July 2024. Two notes have been added, stating that the use of non-standard (and even non-discoverable) keyboard interactions is not a non-conformance. The page did not previously mention non-standard interactions at all, and it raises a number of issues and questions:



  1.  This is one of the original WCAG 2.0 success criteria from 2008. The new notes reverse the interpretation that we have applied for the last 16 years. I have never heard of anyone interpreting the SC the way we now have to.

  2.  Was this change discussed anywhere? On GitHub, the most recent discussion I could find petered out in 2021 without a conclusion.

  3.  How are we supposed to find out about such changes? It wasn't publicised anywhere that I am aware of. There doesn't appear to be any way to subscribe to notification of changes.

  4.  Is there a changelog anywhere that's discoverable from the Understanding page? I can't find one and had to trawl through the Internet Archive to find what changed and when. It would be helpful if the "last changed" date was displayed more prominently, ideally at the top of the page where we might see it.

  5.  Why have the changes not been applied to the WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 versions of the Understanding page? Both WCAG versions are still in use, with 2.0 being used by Section 508 and 2.1 being used by the European Standard EN 301 549.

Developers and testers working to those older WCAG versions would have no reason to look at the WCAG 2.2 version of the Understanding page, so would be unaware of the new guidance. Would they be wrong to continue to interpret the SC "the old way"? For organisations that work to two or more WCAG versions (as some of our clients do) it seems crazy that the guidance would be different depending on which WCAG version was being used on a project.



Steve Green

Managing Director

Test Partners Ltd