Many clients ask about our certification, but we can also provide a conformance statement (also known as a “statement of conformance”) which is very similar to our certification, but slightly different.
Importantly, a conformance statement is a construct of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) under their Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) so any issuer of a conformance statement is bound by the W3C’s five requirements for a statement of conformance.
Five Requirements
Here are the five requirements. The first three requirements are the most important to remember:
- One of the three conformance levels must be met in full.
- Conformance is for full web pages only which means a part of a web page may not be excluded.
- If a web page is one of a series of pages for a process, then all web pages must be conformant.
- For your page to be conformant, all essential content and functions must use technologies in ways that work with assistive technologies. If you include something that isn’t accessible, you must provide the same information and functionality in an accessible way.
- Any non-accessible content you include can’t block or interfere with the rest of your page. Users must be able to access all the accessible content regardless of whether non-accessible technologies are turned on, turned off, or not supported.
Conformance Statement vs. Certification
Accessible.org certification follows the same requirements as a conformance statement. The primary difference is we list out our extensive and thorough methodologies in evaluating your digital asset.
Here, we cover the details because it’s a nice way for clients to showcase their investment and all of the work that’s gone into the accessibility of their digital asset.
Summary
A conformance statement is a sterile document that is intended solely to state whether or not your asset conforms to the requirements (success criteria) of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
The good news is our clients are eligible for either or both documents should they reach full WCAG conformance for a given scope.
For example, let’s say our client wants to certify their website is WCAG 2.1 AA conformant. As long as our audit and validation shows all of the pages and screens within the scope of the website are fully WCAG 2.1 AA, we can issue certification along with a conformance statement.
If you’d like help with accessibility and attaining documentation, we welcome you to send us a message. We’ll reply back very soon.
