Understanding WCAG for Mobile App Accessibility

If you’re involved in mobile app design or development, you know that ease of use is everything. After all, efficiency and convenience are key reasons so many users turn to mobile apps over websites. But when apps aren’t built with accessibility in mind, the resulting experiences can be difficult or impossible to use for many people with disabilities. This is especially true for those who rely on assistive technologies, such as screen readers like VoiceOver and TalkBack or magnification tools like ZoomText.

So how do you know whether your app is accessible? Fortunately, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provide a comprehensive set of criteria for evaluating and creating accessible digital content. And while these standards were originally developed for web content, they can also be applied to mobile experiences. In this post, we’ll explore what WCAG is, and why it’s a valuable framework for designing and building accessible apps. We’ll also share tips and resources you can use to get started creating mobile experiences that work for everyone.

What is WCAG, and why does it matter for mobile apps?

WCAG was created by the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) to help make digital content accessible to a broad group of people with disabilities. While their core mission is inclusion, the guidelines also deliver usability benefits for everyone. Today, WCAG is the global gold standard for digital accessibility, outlining specific technical criteria that websites, mobile apps, documents, and software should meet to be usable by all.

While WCAG focuses primarily on web content, it’s still highly relevant for mobile accessibility. Both Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 in the U.S. and EN 301 549 in Europe apply WCAG to mobile, with a few exceptions and some added software requirements. That said, there are mobile-specific accessibility challenges that WCAG and these related standards don’t fully cover.

This gap doesn’t mean WCAG isn’t useful—it just means the guidelines should be applied alongside EN 301 549 and additional resources the W3C has published, such as guidance on applying WCAG to non-web ICT and to mobile. Together, these frameworks give app designers and developers a solid foundation for creating more accessible mobile experiences.

For mobile app designers and developers, conforming with WCAG has many benefits, including:

• Improved user experience: Meeting WCAG ensures that a wider group of people can interact with your app—regardless of whether they use assistive technology, like a screen reader, and / or have a disability. And mobile apps that are designed with accessibility in mind tend to make it easier for all users to find and engage with the content they need.
• Unlocking business opportunities: More than 1.3 billion people globally live with disabilities. If your business is mobile-first, app accessibility is key to tapping into this massive, historically underserved market. Additionally, if you sell your app to other businesses or government organizations, your customers may require proof of WCAG conformance before signing a deal.
• Legal compliance: Many U.S. and international laws—like Section 508, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the European Accessibility Act (EAA)—reference WCAG or related standards to define accessibility requirements for digital content. So, conforming with WCAG is the best way to ensure your mobile app is compliant.

How the four principles of WCAG (POUR) apply to mobile

The WCAG accessibility criteria are based on four principles: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust (POUR). Here’s how these principles apply in the context of creating or improving mobile experiences.

Principle 1: Perceivable

The first principle of WCAG is all about how a digital experience is presented to users, and anything they must perceive to use the experience as intended. For mobile apps, this includes both on-screen elements and audiovisual content. Best practices include:

• Ensuring sufficient color contrast.
• Supporting the resizing of text and reflow of content.
• Providing captions and transcripts for audiovisual media.
• Ensuring media controls are clearly visible and operable.
• Supporting built-in zoom and magnification features.

Principle 2: Operable

The second principle of WCAG relates to providing user interface components and navigation that all users can operate successfully. To align with this principle, designers and developers should ensure the ways people interact with an app—such as touching buttons and scrolling—are barrier-free.

WCAG requirements for creating operable mobile apps include:

• Supporting different operating methods like the use of a keyboard interface alongside the touch interface.
• Optimizing touch target size and spacing.
• Providing interactions like buttons as an alternative to touch and swipe controls.
• Providing ample time to complete tasks, with options to adjust or extend time limits.
• Supporting gestures and inputs that don’t require complex, timed, or fine motor movements.

Principle 3: Understandable

WCAG’s third principle focuses on making both information and user interface operations easy to understand. This means content and instructions should be clearly written, and navigation should be intuitive—so users can interact with digital experiences confidently and without confusion.

Mobile accessibility best practices for understandability include:

• Ensuring consistent navigation and clear identification of all elements like buttons, menus, and headings.
• Offering clear instructions for gestures like swiping or tapping and explaining how interactive elements like buttons or sliders work.
• Not restricting users to a particular screen orientation.
• Providing immediate feedback when users take an action, like tapping a button or submitting a form.
• Using haptic or auditory feedback to confirm that an action was received—especially when visual cues aren’t available or sufficient.

Principle 4: Robust

The fourth principle of WCAG focuses on how reliably a digital interface works across devices and operating systems. It also emphasizes compatibility with a wide range of assistive technologies to ensure consistent access for all users. Best practices for creating robust mobile experiences include:

• Designing, building, and testing for compatibility with a wide variety of assistive technologies used by people with disabilities.
• Ensuring compatibility with the native accessibility features of mobile operating systems.
• Announcing important on-screen changes to screen reader users (e.g., errors or status messages).
• Designing content to automatically adapt and display correctly across various screen sizes, devices, and viewports.
• Ensuring users know whether menus are expanded or collapsed.

Additional resources to stay on track

For in-depth technical guidance on mobile accessibility, refer to this guide from the W3C’s Mobile Accessibility Task Force. This resource describes how WCAG applies to mobile web content, mobile web apps, native apps, and hybrid apps using web components inside native apps.

While the guide focuses on WCAG 2.0, we recommend that organizations follow the most recent version of WCAG to ensure accessibility for the broadest possible user group. Adhering to the most up-to-date version is also a best practice for staying compliant with evolving laws and regulations. Learn more about the different versions of WCAG in our blog on WCAG conformance levels.

Proactively integrate WCAG principles into mobile app design.

When put into practice, WCAG principles enable teams to create mobile apps that adapt to users’ needs rather than the other way around. So, how can you ensure your mobile apps align with WCAG? The most efficient and cost-effective approach is to proactively integrate accessibility into app design and development—preventing issues from emerging, instead of reactively fixing live experiences.

The following tips will help you get started:

• Ensure designers, developers, and product teams are aligned on accessibility requirements before projects begin.
• Test for accessibility throughout development to stay on the right path during different iterations of your project(s).
• Leverage software development kits (SDKs) designed for mobile testing to ensure your apps remain accessible in the production phase.
• Use live app testing tools to run automated tests on your apps in live environments, and swiftly action on any issues these tests identify.

Your mobile accessibility journey starts here.

Whether you’re building your next big app or fine-tuning an existing mobile experience, Level Access is your trusted digital accessibility partner. We empower developers and designers with tailored guidance, a streamlined accessibility roadmap, and the tools to elevate your workflows.

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