This document describes how Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 [WCAG22] principles, guidelines, and success criteria can be applied to mobile applications, including native mobile apps, mobile web apps and hybrid apps using web components inside native mobile apps. It provides informative guidance (guidance that is not normative and does not set requirements).
Status of This DocumentThis section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C standards and drafts index at https://www.w3.org/TR/.
This is a W3C Group Note on "Guidance on Applying WCAG 2.2 to Mobile Applications (WCAG2Mobile)". The purpose of this work is to build upon "Mobile Accessibility: How WCAG 2.0 and Other W3C/WAI Guidelines Apply to Mobile" [mobile-accessibility-mapping], but also to have a stronger focus on mobile applications and include changes made in WCAG 2.1 and 2.2.
To comment, file an issue in the W3C MATF GitHub repository. The Mobile Accessibility Task Force (MATF) requests that public comments be filed as new issues, one issue per discrete comment. It is free to create a GitHub account to file issues. If filing issues in GitHub is not feasible, email public-agwg-comments@w3.org (comment archive).
To view in-progress updates to the guidelines, see public editors’ draft.
This document was published by the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group as a Group Draft Note using the Note track.
Group Draft Notes are not endorsed by W3C nor its Members.
This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.
The W3C Patent Policy does not carry any licensing requirements or commitments on this document.
This document is governed by the 03 November 2023 W3C Process Document.
Table of ContentsThis document is an iteration on Mobile Accessibility: How WCAG 2.0 and Other W3C/WAI Guidelines Apply to Mobile [mobile-accessibility-mapping], published in February 2015. The document was intended to become a Group Note but it did not move to the next maturity stage. The most recent publication was an Editor's Draft in December 2018.
After 2018, the Mobile Accessibility Task Force (MATF) ensured that mobile considerations were included in WCAG 2.1 and WCAG 2.2, such as:
In January 2024, MATF regrouped and welcomed new participants to work on updated guidance for applying WCAG 2.2 to mobile applications.
This current document, “Guidance on Applying WCAG 2.2 to Mobile Applications (WCAG2Mobile)” maps directly to the W3C supporting document, Guidance on Applying WCAG 2 to Non-Web Information and Communications Technologies (WCAG2ICT) [wcag2ict-22], which was published as a Group Note in October 2024, describing how WCAG 2.2 could be applied to non-web documents and software.
The intention of MATF is to publish WCAG2Mobile as a Group Note, just like WCAG2ICT.
WCAG2ICT is organized to mirror the principle, guideline and success criterion structure of WCAG; this model is also used in WCAG2Mobile. WCAG2ICT clarifies when and how WCAG Level A and Level AA success criteria could be applied to non-web documents and software; WCAG2Mobile narrows the scope of this work to mobile applications.
For information on related work, see Mobile Accessibility at W3C.
This document provides informative guidance (guidance that is not normative and that does not set requirements) with regard to the interpretation and application of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to mobile applications. Specifically, this document provides informative guidance on applying WCAG 2.2 Level A and AA success criteria to mobile applications, including native mobile apps, mobile web apps and hybrid apps using web components inside native mobile apps.
When certain Web-specific terms or phrases like “web page(s)” were used in success criteria, those were replaced with mobile terms or phrases like “screen(s)” or “view(s)”. Additional notes were also provided to explain the terminology replacements.
A small number of success criteria are written to apply to “a set of web pages” or “multiple web pages” and depend upon all pages in the set to share some characteristic or behavior. Since the unit of conformance in WCAG 2 is a single web page, the task force agreed that the equivalent unit of conformance for mobile applications is a single screen within the application. It follows that an equivalent unit of evaluation for a “set of web pages” would be a “set of screens”, not — as previously interpreted in WCAG2ICT — as a “set of software”. These terms are defined in the Key Terms section of this document. See “set of screens” to determine when a group of screens in a mobile application are considered a set.
The glossary terms were also reviewed and most of them applied to mobile applications, as written. Some applied with additional notes or edits (largely related to phrases like “Web page(s)”), and a small number of terms were only used in Level AAA success criteria, which are not addressed by the WCAG2Mobile Note at this time.
The following are out of scope for this document:
This document includes text quoted from the WCAG 2.2 principles, guidelines, success criteria, and glossary definitions without any changes. This document also includes text quoted from the WCAG2ICT document. The guidance provided by this document for each principle, guideline, success criterion, and definition is preceded by a heading beginning with “Applying…”.
The following stylistic conventions are used in this document:
<details> elements and visually styled with a border, and immediately follow the heading for the principle, guideline, or success criterion.<details> elements and visually styled with a border, and immediately follow the WCAG quote.<ins> elements that are visually styled as bold green text with a dotted underline.<cite> elements that are visually styled as ordinary text with a dotted underline, and contain title attributes noting these are WCAG definitions — when mouse or keyboard focus is placed over them, they turn blue with a yellow background.<cite> elements that are visually styled as ordinary text with a dark gray underline.In this Draft Note, most of the existing sections have undergone significant review and updates. The current Draft has been restructured to align with WCAG2ICT rather than continue with the structure and format of the 2015 Mobile Accessibility Mapping document.
With this perspective in mind, the following list highlights where this current document differs from the 2015 Mobile Accessibility Mapping document to apply all success criteria of WCAG 2.0, WCAG 2.1, WCAG 2.2, and acknowledge the change to 4.1.1 Parsing to mobile applications:
Note
Work In Progress. See Key Terms section.
The prior 2015 Mobile Working Draft Note included specific guidance on the following WCAG 2.0 success criteria for mobile, primarily for a mobile web context:
Supporting documentation in the Mobile Mapping Appendix included WCAG 2.0 Techniques that Apply to Mobile to address mobile web use cases for the rest of the WCAG 2.0 success criteria at Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA, as they were available in 2015 when the webpage was published. However, most listed techniques have limited application to native mobile applications and cross-platform frameworks like Flutter and React Native.
This document includes all the relevant WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA success criteria and guidelines:
This document includes all the relevant WCAG 2.2 Level A and AA success criteria:
New terms:
WCAG2Mobile defines key glossary terms to refine the broader scope of WCAG2ICT for mobile applications. It introduces terms that do not exist in WCAG2ICT or WCAG but are important to define for a mobile application context.
“Content” and “user agent” are glossary terms from WCAG2ICT that need to be interpreted significantly differently when applied to mobile applications.
The glossary terms “document” and “software” in WCAG2ICT are replaced with the defined terms “screen” and “view”. The glossary terms “set of web pages”, “set of documents” and “set of software programs” are replaced with the defined term “set of screens”.
The term “accessibility services of platform software”, introduced by WCAG2ICT, has been modified to reflect its different use in mobile applications. Additionally, “closed functionality” has a different meaning in the context of mobile applications.
The remaining glossary terms from WCAG2ICT and WCAG 2 are addressed in WCAG2ICT: Comments on Definitions in WCAG 2 Glossary.
Terms defined and used in WCAG2Mobile are applicable only to the interpretation of the guidance in this document. The particular definitions should not be interpreted as having applicability to situations beyond the scope of WCAG2Mobile. Further information on usage of these terms follows.
Additional information about participation in the Mobile Accessibility Task Force (MATF) can be found on the MATF home page.
This publication has been funded in part with U.S. Federal funds from the Health and Human Services, National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR), initially under contract number ED-OSE-10-C-0067, then under contract number HHSP23301500054C, and now under HHS75P00120P00168. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or the U.S. Department of Education, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
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