WCAG 2.2: what it is, levels, and how to apply it in e-learning

What is WCAG 2.2?

WCAG 2.2 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, version 2.2) are the web accessibility guidelines developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) through its Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). They were published as an official W3C Recommendation on 5 October 2023 and are, to date, the benchmark standard for accessibility in e-learning and digital content in general.

Their goal has not changed since the first version: to ensure that anyone — with or without a visual, auditory, motor or cognitive disability — can perceive, understand, navigate and interact with web content. What has evolved is the scope and technical rigor: version 2.2 introduces 9 new success criteria focused especially on people with cognitive and learning disabilities, reduced mobility and low vision.

From a regulatory standpoint, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) — in force across the European Union since June 2025 and transposed in Spain through Law 11/2023 — makes compliance with these guidelines a legal obligation for companies in multiple sectors, including online training platforms and digital learning tools.

From a regulatory standpoint, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) — in force since June 2025 and transposed in Spain through Law 11/2023 — makes compliance with WCAG 2.2 a legal obligation for companies in sectors including e-commerce, banking and digital services. For organizations deploying corporate training programs, meeting these guidelines is no longer just best practice: it is an increasingly explicit legal and contractual requirement.

The 4 POUR principles of WCAG 2.2

The entire WCAG 2.2 structure is organized around four core principles, known as POUR. They form the foundation on which the 13 guidelines and 87 success criteria are built:

• Perceivable: information and interface components must be presented in ways that users can perceive. This includes alternative text for images, captions for videos and sufficient color contrast.
• Operable: interface components and navigation must be operable. This means everything must be keyboard-accessible, users must have enough time to complete tasks, and content must not trigger seizures.
• Understandable: information and the operation of the interface must be understandable. Text must be readable, page behavior predictable, and forms must help users avoid and correct errors.
• Robust: content must be robust enough to be interpreted by a wide range of user agents, including assistive technologies such as screen readers.

In the context of instructional design, these four principles are not just a technical reference: they represent the foundation for creating truly inclusive learning experiences where no participant is excluded for accessibility reasons.

The 9 new WCAG 2.2 success criteria

The main novelty of WCAG 2.2 compared to its predecessor is the addition of 9 new success criteria. These supplement the existing WCAG 2.1 criteria (which already included those from WCAG 2.0), ensuring full backwards compatibility: anyone complying with WCAG 2.2 automatically complies with earlier versions.

The new criteria are distributed across three conformance levels: 2 at Level A (minimum mandatory), 4 at Level AA (the legally required standard) and 3 at Level AAA (highest rigor). In addition, criterion 4.1.1 (Parsing) was removed as it had become obsolete when screen readers stopped relying directly on the HTML tree.

Conformance levels A, AA and AAA: which one applies to your courses?

WCAG 2.2 defines three conformance levels that determine the degree of accessibility achieved:

• Level A is the minimum level. Meeting it removes the most serious barriers preventing access to content. It is the mandatory starting point for any digital content.
• Level AA is the reference standard for most legal and corporate contexts. European legislation (EAA, EN 301 549) and public procurement specifications require this level. For LMS platforms and corporate e-learning courses, Level AA is the typical target.
• Level AAA represents the highest rigor. It is not universally required, but is the recommended standard for critical services such as healthcare, banking or public administration.

For organizations deploying training programs at scale, targeting Level AA as a minimum is not only a growing legal obligation: it is also a strategic decision that extends learning reach to every employee profile, regardless of their abilities or the device they use to access it.

WCAG 2.2 vs WCAG 2.1: what changes and what stays the same

The transition from WCAG 2.1 to WCAG 2.2 is incremental, not disruptive. If a platform or course already complied with WCAG 2.1 Level AA, the path to WCAG 2.2 reduces to reviewing the 9 additional criteria. The architecture of principles, guidelines and levels remains intact.

How WCAG 2.2 affects the design of e-learning courses

WCAG 2.2 is not just a standard for corporate websites: it has direct and concrete implications for the creation of training content. An accessible e-learning design that complies with WCAG 2.2 requires attention in at least four key areas:

• Keyboard navigation: all modules, menus and activities must be accessible without a mouse. Criterion 2.4.11 requires that the keyboard-focused element is never hidden behind fixed headers — a common error in learning platforms.
• Accessible interactive activities: drag-and-drop exercises, so common in e-learning, must always offer an accessible alternative that does not require the dragging gesture (criterion 2.5.7). This includes sorting elements, matching concepts or completing diagrams.
• Compliant multimedia content: videos with synchronized captions, text transcripts, audio description for relevant visual content and images with descriptive alternative text are Level A and AA requirements. Well-implemented multimodal learning naturally meets these criteria.
• Accessible assessments and forms: registration, enrollment and assessment forms must not ask for the same information twice in the same process (criterion 3.3.7), and LMS access must not rely on CAPTCHAs without an accessible alternative (criterion 3.3.8).

From a production standpoint, incorporating these guidelines from the start of the instructional design process costs a fraction of correcting them after a course is published. Modern authoring tools can greatly simplify this work by offering accessible templates and components by default.

Clarel is a representative example of how a large-scale training strategy can benefit from accessible design. With isEazy, the company deployed simultaneous training across all its points of sale, ensuring content reached very diverse employee profiles from any device. Find out how they did it →

Create accessible e-learning courses with isEazy Author

Designing training content that complies with WCAG 2.2 starts with choosing the right tools. isEazy Author is an e-learning authoring tool that allows you to create interactive courses with components built for accessibility: keyboard navigation, correct semantic structures, alternative text support and output in standard formats such as SCORM and xAPI compatible with screen readers.

If your organization needs to scale accessible content production without sacrificing quality or speed, isEazy Author combines solid instructional design with the technical capabilities needed to meet current accessibility standards.