The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, commonly known as WCAG, are a set of international standards that have been developed as a universal set of web accessibility guidelines recognised around the world. These guidelines have been developed around four principles: Perceivable, helping users to recognise and use digital content with the senses available to them. These include Alt text, subtitles and responsiveness.  Operable, helping users to find and use the content regardless of how they choose to access it. Examples include keyboard navigation, no blinking or flashing content and using descriptive links. Understandable is helping people to understand the content or service. For example, using plain English, explaining acronyms and having predictable behaviours. Robust, helping users interpret content by a wide variety of user agents. This could include compatible and interacting in informative ways with assistive technologies. You could say that a good website is a POUR website, P-O-U-R. There were three levels of WCAG, A, AA, and AAA:  Level A is the minimum level, which all digital content should adhere to. It has 25 success criteria and covers areas such as colour not being used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element, such as pressing the green button to proceed. Level AA is an acceptable level for online services, which should work with assistive technologies for both desktop and mobile. It has 13 success criteria and addresses the biggest barriers for users with disabilities. By conforming to AA, a webpage meets both the A and AA performance levels. It covers areas such as ensuring that all the texts meets the colour contrast requirements. Their requirement differ somewhat based upon the size of the text, but it's actually pretty strict. Government websites in the UK have to meet AA standards. It's legally required for certain websites and it's the one that is typically referred to when you're tasked with making a website accessible.  Level AAA is the gold standard level, providing complete digital accessibility, enabling users to have an excellent online experience.

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