How do you set a WCAG conformance target for a product and keep the claim true a year later?

## Four decisions, not one 'We are aiming for accessibility' commits nobody to anything. A real target answers four questions, and an interviewer at this level is listening for all four. | Decision | The sensible default | Why it is a decision at all | |---|---|---| | **Level** | AA across the product | AAA is not achievable as a whole-product policy, and level A alone leaves real barriers standing | | **Version** | The newest version you have verified against | Later 2.x versions are backwards compatible, so a newer claim also satisfies a request for an older one | | **Scope** | Named screens and named complete processes, per platform, as of a date | Conformance attaches to pages and processes, so a claim without a scope is not checkable | | **Uncontrolled content** | Named explicitly, with the route you have chosen for it | It affects what a user actually receives, so silence about it makes the claim false rather than incomplete | The version decision trips people up in both directions. Claiming the newest version does not strand you with buyers who ask for an older one, because conformance to a later 2.x also satisfies the earlier ones. What you may not do is claim the newer version on the strength of an audit run against the older one, because the newer version added criteria that were never checked. ## What an accessibility statement commits you to Publishing a statement converts an internal target into an external promise. A statement worth publishing carries: - The **standard and version**, and the **conformance level** claimed. - The **scope**: which applications, which platforms, which processes end to end. - **Known non-conforming parts**, described plainly, with what you are doing about them. - The **alternative route** to any task a user cannot complete on the primary path. - A **feedback channel** with a stated response time, and someone whose job it is to answer it. - A **date** and an **owner**. Without those the statement is a slogan. That list is also the honest answer to a procurement questionnaire. Buyers discount a hedge far less than they punish a claim their own testers can break. ## Content you do not control | Route | What you publish | What it costs | |---|---|---| | Bring it in scope | A full claim covering it | Supplier terms, review capacity, sometimes replacing the supplier | | Statement of partial conformance | The page does not conform, but would at the named version and level if the identified uncontrolled parts were removed | Honest but weaker; the identification must stay accurate as the content changes | | Conforming alternate version | A claim covering an alternative route that provides the same function | Two paths to keep in step forever | Two conditions matter for the partial-conformance route: the content must genuinely be outside your control, and it must be described so a user can tell which parts are meant. The standard also allows a determination based on monitoring uncontrolled content and repairing it within a short defined window, which is the route for user-supplied contributions. What none of this is: a device for excusing your own unfinished work. Your backlog is not third-party content. ## Keeping the claim true a year later A claim describes a moving product at one moment, so it needs machinery: 1. **An owner** by name, not a team mailbox. Statements without owners go stale silently. 2. **Re-verification tied to releases**, not to the calendar. Sample broadly every release train; re-verify the claimed processes end to end on a slower schedule. 3. **A gate in the definition of done** for new work, so the claim degrades slower than it is repaired. 4. **A defect register with dates**, so the statement is amended rather than rewritten each time. 5. **A response path for complaints** through the published channel, treated as defects with a service level, because a complaint is the cheapest audit you will ever get. 6. **A re-check when you change the claimed version**, since a newer version adds criteria nobody has tested. ## Under deadline pressure The national library catalogue has a procurement questionnaire due in nine days, 212 screens across a phone app, branch kiosks and a staff desk client, and an 83-component shared library that three teams contribute to. Nobody can verify all of that in nine days. The judgement call is what to write. The tempting answer is a bare 'yes, AA'. The defensible one names the level and version, names the two processes verified end to end and the date they were verified, lists the known gaps with target dates, and gives the feedback route. It is a smaller claim, and it is the one that still stands after the buyer's own testers spend an afternoon on the kiosk client. That is the tradeoff a lead owns: the breadth of the claim against the cost of defending it. Breadth is easy to promise and expensive to keep. A narrow claim can always be widened next quarter; a withdrawn one is remembered for years. ## What generic statements about obligation are safe Many jurisdictions' public-sector rules and a large share of enterprise procurement processes reference this standard at level AA. That is as specific as anyone should be without counsel: the instruments differ by country and sector, they change, and stating a legal obligation as universal is how teams end up either over-building or ignoring a real requirement. Set the engineering target at AA, and let the people who own legal exposure map it to the instruments that apply.