WCAG 2.2 adds nine success criteria to WCAG 2.1 and deprecates one; everything else in 2.1 carries forward unchanged. For most industrial B2B websites in Europe the operative target is still WCAG 2.1 level AA, because EN 301 549 — the harmonised standard European accessibility legislation points to — is built around 2.1. Whether any obligation applies to your organisation depends on your markets, sector and size, and should be confirmed with qualified legal counsel.
The decision in front of you is which version your build is measured against, and how much of 2.2 to adopt voluntarily. The new criteria concentrate on focus visibility, pointer target size, dragging alternatives, consistent help, redundant entry and authentication — areas that affect product finders, faceted catalogue filters and distributor portal logins far more than a corporate about page.
WCAG 2.2 is additive. It retains the 2.1 criteria and adds nine, while deprecating 4.1.1 Parsing. The additions cover focus appearance, focus not being obscured, pointer target size, dragging alternatives, consistent help, redundant entry and accessible authentication.
A site already conforming to 2.1 AA therefore has a bounded gap to close rather than a rebuild in front of it. Most of the work lands in interactive components, and very little of it lands in editorial templates.
European accessibility legislation does not name a WCAG version directly. It points to the harmonised standard EN 301 549, and the versions currently in force across most member states reference WCAG 2.1 level AA for web content.
Standards bodies revise on a rolling cycle and a later reference is expected in time. Scope, timing and whether an obligation reaches your organisation at all are legal determinations for your counsel. The industrial website accessibility checklist sets out what conformance covers in practice.
Target size and dragging alternatives matter most on product finders with range sliders for flow rate, pressure or dimension, on faceted catalogue filters used one-handed on a phone in a plant, and on drag-to-compare or drag-to-configure interfaces.
Accessible authentication matters on distributor and partner portals, where a login that requires recalling and transcribing an account or order reference can fail the criterion. Consistent help matters across large sites where technical support, the distributor locator and the enquiry route sit in different places on different templates.
Focus not obscured is a recurring failure on industrial sites carrying sticky headers, cookie bars and floating enquiry buttons: keyboard focus lands behind an overlay, and the person operating the page loses track of where they are.
Redundant entry affects long specification enquiry and RFQ forms that ask for the same site address, account reference or contact detail at more than one step. Both are inexpensive to handle during a build and awkward to retrofit into a live template.
On a new build, adopting the 2.2 criteria adds little to cost because the components are being written anyway, and it removes a foreseeable remediation project for when the referenced version moves.
On an existing site, the workable sequence is to reach and evidence 2.1 AA first, then close the 2.2 gap on the templates carrying the interactive components. Our website accessibility page describes how we scope that.
Confirm which markets the site serves and which entity publishes each property, since obligations follow the market and the organisation rather than the domain. Check what your tender responses and customer questionnaires already commit you to in writing, which is frequently 2.1 AA with a dated report.
Then test against that baseline with automated tooling and manual keyboard and screen-reader passes, and keep the result. Conformance is a claim you have to be able to evidence, and our accessibility compliance page covers that programme.
WCAG 2.2 keeps every 2.1 criterion and adds nine, while deprecating 4.1.1 Parsing. The additions cover focus appearance, focus not obscured, pointer target size, dragging alternatives, consistent help, redundant entry and accessible authentication. For an industrial site that is a bounded gap rather than a rebuild, and it concentrates in configurators, filtered catalogues and portal logins rather than in editorial pages.
European legislation references the harmonised standard EN 301 549 rather than WCAG directly, and the versions in force across most member states reference WCAG 2.1 level AA for web content. That makes 2.1 AA the operative bar today. Whether any obligation applies to your organisation depends on your markets, sector and size, and should be confirmed with qualified legal counsel.
In practice yes, since 2.2 is additive and retains the 2.1 criteria. An organisation building to 2.2 can generally evidence 2.1 AA from the same testing, provided the report records results against each criterion set separately. Check the wording your customers and tender documents ask for, because many questionnaires require a named version and a dated conformance statement.
Accessible authentication, because a login requiring someone to recall and transcribe an account or order reference without a copy-and-paste route can fail it. Focus not obscured follows close behind, since support widgets and sticky headers often sit over the focused field. Target size and redundant entry then apply across account setup and long RFQ forms.
It follows the number of interactive components rather than the page count. A corporate site with editorial templates and one enquiry form is usually a small piece of work. A large catalogue with a product finder, comparison tools and an authenticated portal is a template-by-template exercise, and the estimate should follow an audit rather than precede it.
Standards are revised on a rolling cycle and a later WCAG reference is widely expected, though the timing sits with the standards bodies. We build to the version currently in force and treat the additional 2.2 criteria as a reasonable voluntary target. Your legal or regulatory team should confirm the reference that applies when you are asked to attest to conformance.
Tell us which markets the site serves and which buyers ask for conformance, and we will scope the audit against the version you are measured on.