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You will often hear accessibility professionals say that “WCAG conformance does not guarantee usability”.

Even though WCAG is

  • laws say meet WCAG.
  • EN contains WCAG

So it’s a place to start, but it’s not the end, especially if you need to meet EN requirements. But it’s also not enough because it does not guarantee usability.

Examples:

Best practice is just your opinion https://www.craigabbott.co.uk/blog/best-practice-is-just-your-opinion/

Get examples out of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADIgU53Y2Rg

examples:

  • button is operable using a key. Passes WCAG but not usable.
  • link not distinguishable from surrounding text. Not a WCAG failure but SUX.
  • focus styles (AAA is for making it clearly visible but who follows AAA? you can still legally pass for AA and have bad focus indicators)
  • buttons with the same labels or just graphics as labels—technically accessible if they have an accessible name and if the label is contained in the name, but usability gets a hit for speech recognition users
  • You could hide mouse cursor or provide a bad one and pass (because there are not criteria covering cursor visibility)
  • You could also do the same with carets (link to article)

So even though you might use WCAG as a measuring stick and evaluate the accessibility of your work against it, passing—or, in these examples—not failing WCAG requirements does not mean that your work is usable—whether by people with disabilities, or those without.

Real-world physical world examples

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/agareev_when-accessibility-falls-flat-i-took-this-activity-7368643869447548928-5Siz?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAF3LX-QBd6E04ZrI6mKZJ2ypB0RmJTEZtsc Help that’s not reachable.

Usability is for everyone

When something is unusable, it compounds for people with disabilities. Here are insights: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sheribyrnehaber_equity-equal-disability-activity-7368659004530634752-kTGv?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAF3LX-QBd6E04ZrI6mKZJ2ypB0RmJTEZtsc

End with https://useragentman.com/wcag-wishlist/