WCAG Master Guide: Readable

You probably don’t think twice about whether the content on your site is readable and understandable, but some users may have difficulty deciphering the text on your site. 

Readable standards are a key part of the Website Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and should be a key consideration when remediating your website. 

Readable Guidelines Explained

The purpose of the readable guidelines is to ensure your text content can be accessed by both users and assistive technology.

Your website visitors consume text in different ways. Some may read it visually, while others need to consume it audibly or tacitly. 

It’s not always possible for all users to understand the meaning of a word or phrase when it is used in a specialized or unusual way, which is when expanded definitions become useful. 

When it comes to assistive technology, if the language or direction of text can’t be identified, it cannot relay the text correctly to the user. 

It is up to website owners to ensure that all users can fully access and understand the content on a site, regardless of language and technology preferences or ability. 

WCAG Readable Success Criteria

Here are the readable success criteria you would need to meet in order to achieve Level A or higher.

Language of Page

Any user who accesses your website should be able to programmatically determine the language of it.

This ensures that assistive technology can render text accurately by loading the correct pronunciation rules. Visual browsers will also be able to display characters and scripts correctly. 

When a site’s language is clear, people who use screen readers can convert text into synthetic speech more easily. It also benefits people with cognitive, language, and learning disabilities, and people who rely on captions to consume media. 

Language of Parts

Users need to be able to programmatically determine the language of each paragraph or phrase in your content except for proper names, technical terms, words of indeterminate language, and words or phrases that have become part of the vernacular of the immediately surrounding text.

The purpose of this requirement is to ensure that assistive technology can correctly present this content in multiple languages. This requirement applies to browsers as well as screen readers, and braille displays. 

Marking changes in language can also benefit future developments in technology, making it possible for people to translate between languages more easily.

Unusual Words

Site owners need to make it possible for visitors to identify the definitions of specific words or phrases that are used in unusual or restricted ways. This includes technical jargon and idioms. 

This requirement benefits visitors who have difficulty decoding words or cannot use context to aid their understanding of text on a page. 

Abbreviations

It’s also important to provide your website visitors with an expanded glossary for any abbreviations on your site. Again, this benefits users who cannot decipher difficult words and those with limited memory. 

Reading Level

If some of the content on your site is more advanced than someone with a lower secondary education level can understand, you should provide a second version of your content that caters to their reading level. 

Pronunciation

For users who do not know how to pronounce certain words, site owners should provide a mechanism that will provide them with guidance on pronunciation. 

The purpose of this requirement is to ensure people with visual impairments can understand your content in cases where the meaning depends on pronunciation. In most instances, the meaning of words and characters can be determined from the context of a sentence. However, assistance should be provided for more complex paragraphs of text. 

Readable Best Practices

To help you meet Level AA, the ideal WCAG compliance level, here are a few timing best practices you can apply. 

Add your site’s language to your code. To ensure that users who have a different native language and those who rely on assistive technology can determine the language of your site, it’s important to add the relevant code to your website. This is known as ISO code. You can set the language of your site by typing in your 2-letter code under Language code.

Offer a glossary of terms. If your content contains a lot of jargon, idioms, and abbreviations, make sure that you’re providing a glossary of terms. Users should also be able to easily access the glossary.

Cater to all reading levels. Wherever possible, create content that caters to the average reading level. If this cannot be avoided, find a way to provide an alternative simplified page to website visitors. 

Frequently Asked Questions