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WCAG & Accessibility·3 min read

How to Work Through a WCAG Checklist (All 78 Items)

Seventy-eight success criteria, four principles, three conformance levels. WCAG 2.1 reads like a legal document because it effectively is one, cited by ADA Title II, Section 508, and the European Accessibility Act. The trick to how to work through a wcag checklist is refusing to treat it as one giant task: filter to the level you owe, split criteria by who can verify them, and record evidence as you go. Done that way, the wall of text becomes a few weeks of steady, finishable work.

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Why 78 WCAG 2.1 success criteria need a tracker

Memory is not a method.

The situations that summon a full criteria review are always high-stakes: a procurement questionnaire asking you to document conformance, an auditor booked for next month, a legal deadline with your name on it. Answering from memory fails immediately, because nobody retains 78 criteria, and half of them hide subtleties, like 1.4.3 exempting large text down to a 3:1 ratio.

An interactive tracker fixes the two failure modes at once: you can't lose your place, and you can't quietly skip the awkward criteria, because the unchecked boxes keep staring at you.

Level A vs AA vs AAA: picking a WCAG target

AA is the working answer.

The level a vs aa vs aaa question sorts itself out fast once you look at what regulators cite. Level A is the floor, AA is the standard named by ADA Title II, Section 508, EN 301 549, and AODA, and AAA is aspirational; the W3C itself advises against requiring AAA site-wide, since some criteria can't be met for all content types.

In the checklist, the A and AA buttons are on by default and AAA is one click away. Claiming AA means clearing every A criterion too, which is why the two levels display together rather than as separate lists.

How to work through a WCAG checklist without stalling

Split by verifier, not by number.

Go principle by principle, but assign items by who can actually verify them. A developer confirms 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value by reading component code. A designer settles 1.4.11 Non-text Contrast with a color tool. A content editor owns 2.4.6 Headings and Labels. The plain-English detail line under each criterion exists so you can hand a section to a non-specialist without also handing them the spec.

Check items off as verification finishes, not when a ticket gets opened. Progress saves in your browser between sessions, and the counter beside the level filters keeps score of what's visible and what's left.

A worked WCAG criterion check: page language in 30 seconds

One criterion, start to finish.

Take 3.1.1 Language of Page, Level A. The test: view source on any page and inspect the opening tag. Input: <html> with no lang attribute is a fail; screen readers fall back to their default voice and mispronounce everything. Output: <html lang="en"> passes, and the checkbox gets ticked with a clear conscience.

Now a numeric one: 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum), Level AA, requires 4.5:1 for body text. Grey text at #949494 on white measures roughly 2.98:1, a fail; darkening it to #767676 clears the bar at 4.54:1. Most criteria reduce to small, checkable facts like these once you stop reading them as legal prose.

WCAG checklist mistakes that create false confidence

A checklist can lie to you if you let it. The usual ways:

  • Ticking from memory instead of testing. "We handle keyboard access" is a belief; tabbing through checkout is a verification.
  • Marking a criterion passed after checking one page. Templates differ; verify each criterion against your distinct layouts.
  • Chasing AAA items while AA gaps remain open. Auditors and lawsuits care about AA; finish it first.
  • Forgetting the export before clearing browser data. Checked state lives in local storage and vanishes with it.

Documenting WCAG conformance auditors will accept

Evidence over assertion.

Documenting wcag conformance is mostly about dates and methods. Export the checklist as Markdown into your repository or as CSV for stakeholders each time a review cycle ends, and note how contested criteria were verified: which screen reader, which pages, which browser. A dated series of exports showing criteria moving from open to verified reads like a genuine program. A single undated claim of "WCAG compliant" reads like marketing, and auditors treat it accordingly.

Two more habits pay off: re-verify after any redesign, since template changes silently reopen settled criteria, and record known failures honestly; they feed straight into your public statement's limitations section.

Splitting work between the WCAG checklist and the scanner

Automate a third, verify the rest.

Roughly a third of WCAG's criteria are machine-detectable, and the WCAG Accessibility Scanner automates those across your whole site, alt attributes, labels, contrast math, and ARIA validity among them. This checklist carries everything automation can't judge: media quality, focus behavior, error handling, consistency. For one-off page tests along the way, the Instant Accessibility Checker gives immediate answers, and when the review completes, the Accessibility Statement Generator turns your verified status into a publishable document.

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