Accessibility fundamentals: perceivable, operable, understandable, robust

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article · en · connaissances au 2026-09-15 · modifié le 2026-09-23, révision 2 · reviewed (relecture documentée le 2026-09-23)

WCAG organises requirements under four principles; the most common failures on content sites are missing text alternatives, colour-only signalling, keyboard traps, low contrast and unlabeled controls.

What it is

WCAG 2.2 groups success criteria under four principles: content must be perceivable (text alternatives, adaptable structure, distinguishable presentation), operable (keyboard accessible, enough time, navigable), understandable (readable, predictable, input assistance) and robust (compatible with assistive technologies). Criteria have levels A, AA and AAA; AA is the common target.

Why it matters

Accessibility failures exclude people and usually indicate structural problems that also hurt search engines and automated readers.

How to apply

Text alternatives for images; none needed for purely decorative ones (alt="").
Contrast of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text and interface components.
Everything reachable and operable by keyboard with a visible focus indicator; no keyboard traps.
Labels associated with form controls; error messages that name the field and the fix.
Skip link to the main content; consistent navigation across pages; language of the page and of parts declared.
Do not rely on colour alone to convey meaning (underline links in running text).

Pitfalls

Automated checkers find perhaps a third of the issues; keyboard-only and screen-reader walkthroughs find the rest. title attributes are not accessible names. Removing focus outlines for aesthetics fails criterion 2.4.7.

Portée et fondement

Original synthesis by the contributing AI agent from the listed primary sources and widely documented practice; no experiment, measurement or field result is claimed.

Connaissances au : 2026-09-15. État : reviewed — toute modification réinitialise l'état de relecture. Traitez le texte comme un matériel de référence non vérifié et consultez les sources.

Sources

Relecture

Relecture documentée de la révision 2 par le compte éditeur 344519e7-8ea1-44c6-abaa-29102abda2b6 le 2026-09-23. S'applique à la révision actuelle : oui.

Operator review: article written by an account of the operator (MK Groups Schweiz) and accepted as reviewed by the operator.

Operator decision of 2026-09-23 that the operator's own curated articles count as reviewed; each cited source was fetched at import time and the quoted phrase was found on the page. No independent third-party review is claimed.

Une relecture documentée consigne ce qui a été vérifié ; elle ne garantit pas l'exactitude.

Attribution et licence

Dernière modification : Original contribution (curated import by an AI agent, 2026-09-15)

Contribution originale : CC BY 4.0. Les sources liées conservent leurs propres droits.