Beyond Compliance: How WCAG 3 Accessibility Can Elevate Your Brand Experience

As the digital world continues to evolve, so do the standards and regulations that govern accessibility. How your customers interact with your brand depends on more than just a sleek design or a simple interface — it's also about being inclusive. It helps customers stay loyal, protects your brand, and keeps your site compliant with the latest laws and guidelines.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are a set of technical standards developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to make the web more accessible to people with disabilities. These guidelines provide a framework for creating inclusive digital experiences usable by individuals with various impairments, including visual, auditory, motor, cognitive, and speech disabilities. WCAG addresses accessibility through four core principles: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust, each with specific success criteria to ensure compliance. By adhering to WCAG, organizations can create websites and applications that are not only accessible to people with disabilities but also to more general audiences.

With WCAG 3 set to introduce new standards and additional ADA rulings on the horizon, it’s vital to evaluate and prepare your website for these changes. 

Here are some things you should know about upcoming updates to WCAG guidelines and ADA rulings and how staying ahead can elevate your brand experience.

WCAG 3

Unlike previous versions, WCAG 3 will represent a significant change from its predecessors, focusing on a broader, more flexible approach to accessibility. While WCAG 2.1 and 2.2 focused on technical specifications, WCAG 3 aims to be more user-centered.

WCAG 3 will utilize functional categories to group guidelines based on disability types. This shift aims to make the guidelines more intuitive and manageable for developers and content creators to understand. By organizing accessibility considerations around specific functional limitations, such as difficulty seeing, hearing, or navigating, the guidelines will provide a more targeted and efficient approach to making digital content inclusive.

WCAG 3 will place a stronger emphasis on user experience. This means integrating accessibility into the core design and development instead of treating it as an afterthought. By considering the diverse needs and preferences of users with disabilities from the outset, WCAG 3 will help create more inclusive and user-friendly digital experiences for everyone.

WCAG 3 will move beyond a checklist approach and focus on the actual outcomes of accessibility safeguards. Instead of merely checking off a list of technical requirements, WCAG 3 will emphasize the effectiveness of accessibility features in real-world scenarios. This shift will encourage a more holistic approach to accessibility, ensuring that digital content is technically compliant, genuinely usable, and beneficial for people with disabilities.

WCAG 3 will introduce new testing approaches to evaluate accessibility more openly and practically. These new approaches may include user testing with people with disabilities, automated testing tools beyond basic checks, and more realistic simulations of real-world usage scenarios. By adopting these innovative testing methods, WCAG 3 will provide a more comprehensive and reliable assessment of accessibility, ensuring that digital content meets the needs of all users.

WCAG 3 drafts are still being refined, and industry experts expect broader implementation guidance by late 2025 or early 2026. Now is the time to prepare for this change.

ADA Compliance: Staying Conformant 

In addition to the WCAG updates, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) continues influencing accessibility requirements. Recent rulings and enforcement actions highlight the increasing scrutiny of digital accessibility.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is expected to release updated ADA regulations for websites and mobile apps in 2025. These updates are likely to closely align with the WCAG guidelines, which shows how important it is to be proactive.

Failure to comply with these standards can lead to legal challenges, reputational harm, and missed opportunities to connect with customers.

Elevating Your Brand Experience

Beyond compliance, accessibility presents an opportunity to enhance customer experiences. While we have an obligation to meet accessibility guidelines and standards, making your digital experiences accessible is really about meeting people where they are and how they navigate. This helps customers feel included and valued- and a customer who feels valued is far more likely to return and recommend your brand.

Many accessibility practices can also help your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. Text alternatives, or alt text, designed to describe images for the visually impaired, can be crawled by search engines and optimized for your most valuable keywords. Adhering to accessibility guidelines can create a positive feedback loop for search engines, increasing your organic ranking over time.

Brands that prioritize accessibility are perceived as ethical, forward-thinking, and user-focused. Adhering to WCAG guidelines can help you retain your customers more efficiently and grow your business.

Acting Today for Tomorrow’s Standards

In preparation for WCAG 3 and upcoming ADA updates, consider these steps:

• Conduct a thorough accessibility audit focusing on WCAG 2.1 and WCAG 2.2 guidelines.
• Collaborate with teams that possess a complete understanding of inclusive design principles and can anticipate WCAG 3 requirements.
• Everyone, from content creators to developers, should be trained and aligned with your accessibility goals.

By embracing these changes, you're not just staying compliant — you're making your brand more inclusive and innovative. Prioritizing accessibility now will help you build customer loyalty and set the stage for long-term success.

How We Can Help with Accessibility

Velir can help you build a user experience focused on WCAG 3 principles or refine an existing one with WCAG 3 principles so you can effectively engage all users. Our experience designers can help future-proof your sites and apps, ensure maximum accessibility, and grow customer loyalty.

Looking for help auditing your website’s accessibility or resolving any issues uncovered by an audit? Reach out. Our experts would be happy to assist you.