WCAG 2.2: What Changed and What Small Businesses Actually Need to Fix
Key takeaways
- WCAG 2.2 AA is the current expected standard in accessibility lawsuits — 2.1 is no longer the safe assumption.
- Nine new success criteria were added, mostly around focus visibility, dragging alternatives, target sizes, and login usability.
- The Focus Not Obscured and Target Size rules are the ones small-business sites fail most often. Both are cheap to fix.
- Dragging-alternative rules affect sliders, sortable lists, and any drag-and-drop UI — common on portfolios and stores.
- Grandfathered 2.1-compliant sites should schedule a 2.2 review in the next year, especially before any redesign.
WCAG 2.2 has been the published standard since late 2023. Two years on, courts and demand-letter firms have started citing it explicitly, and 2026 has been the tipping-point year — accessibility audits I do for East Texas small businesses are now measured against 2.2, not 2.1. If your site was built against 2.1 AA and you haven’t looked at it since, this post is a short, plain-English walk through what changed and what to do.
None of the 2.2 additions are technically dramatic. But they target real-world issues that have been common in web design for years, and they’re going to show up in demand letters through 2026 and 2027.
The nine new success criteria (in plain English)
Here are the additions, ordered roughly by how often small-business sites fail them:
1. Focus Not Obscured (2.4.11 & 2.4.12)
When a user tabs through your site, the focused element must not be hidden behind sticky headers, floating chat widgets, cookie banners, or drop-down menus. This is everywhere on modern websites. Chat widgets, in particular, cover the focused element on smaller screens all the time.
2. Target Size (2.5.8)
Interactive elements (buttons, links) need to be at least 24×24 CSS pixels, or have enough spacing so they don’t overlap other targets. This mostly hits:
- Tiny social media icons in footers
- Text links packed together in lists without padding
- Pagination controls
- Icon-only buttons with no padding
3. Focus Appearance (2.4.13)
The focus indicator (the outline that appears when you tab to an element) must be visible and have real contrast. Themes that suppress the focus outline for “aesthetic” reasons — very common on 2018-era WordPress themes — fail this outright.
4. Dragging Movements (2.5.7)
If a function on your site requires dragging (a slider, a re-orderable list, a canvas drag-to-rotate), there must be a keyboard or click alternative. This hits:
- Slider-based image galleries (rare now but they exist)
- Drag-and-drop product configurators
- Range sliders in search filters
- Signature capture
5. Consistent Help (3.2.6)
If you show a help mechanism (chat, phone number, FAQ link) on some pages, it needs to be in the same place on every page that shows it. This one is easy but often broken when a chat widget appears in an inconsistent corner.
6. Redundant Entry (3.3.7)
Don’t make users re-enter information they already gave you in the same session. Multi-step checkouts, contact-then-quote flows, and quote-request forms are the usual offenders.
7. Accessible Authentication (3.3.8 & 3.3.9)
Logins can’t require solving a cognitive test (like memorizing a code and typing it, or CAPTCHA that requires image recognition) unless an alternative is offered. Password managers must be allowed. This mostly hits customer-portal-style logins on service-business sites.
What most small businesses actually need to check
For a typical East Texas small-business site (10-25 pages, a contact form, a blog, maybe a booking widget or online store), the practical shortlist:
| 2.2 rule | Where it usually breaks on small-business sites |
|---|---|
| Focus Not Obscured | Sticky headers & floating chat/cookie widgets covering fields |
| Target Size | Footer social icons, packed link lists, close buttons on popups |
| Focus Appearance | Suppressed :focus outlines in theme CSS |
| Dragging Movements | Homepage sliders, image comparison “before/after” widgets |
| Consistent Help | Chat widgets that move location or disappear on certain pages |
| Redundant Entry | Multi-step contact/quote forms without pre-fill |
You do not need to memorize WCAG. You need a designer who has, and who has actually kicked the tires with a keyboard and a screen reader.
What’s still the same from 2.1
All the old rules — meaningful alt text, semantic HTML, keyboard navigation, contrast ratios, form labels — still apply. 2.2 is a superset of 2.1, not a replacement. If you nailed 2.1 AA, you’re most of the way to 2.2 AA. Most of the new criteria touch specific UI patterns rather than fundamentals.
The audit approach that works
- Automated scan. WAVE, Lighthouse, axe DevTools. Catches maybe 30% of issues, but the ones it catches are the fast wins.
- Keyboard-only walk. Unplug your mouse. Tab through the site. Can you complete the primary action? Can you see where focus is at every step? This alone catches Focus Not Obscured and Focus Appearance issues.
- Screen-reader spot check. Turn on VoiceOver (Mac) or NVDA (Windows) and try to navigate a page. You’ll hear things you didn’t know were wrong.
- Manual click-target check. Zoom your browser to 200% and see if any buttons touch each other or shrink below 24×24.
When to redo vs. patch
If your site is on a modern, well-maintained theme (Astra, Kadence, Blocksy, GeneratePress, or a custom build from the last three years), most 2.2 issues are patchable in a few hours. If your site is on a heavily-modified 2018-era theme or a page builder that generates non-semantic HTML, you’ll spend more time patching than rebuilding. Redesigns are often the cheaper long-term move for older sites — because the underlying HTML is what needs to change.
Where people go wrong (and when to call a pro)
The single biggest mistake: assuming that because your site “passes Lighthouse,” you’re WCAG 2.2 AA compliant. Lighthouse checks maybe a third of the criteria and misses the exact ones that show up in demand letters (Focus Not Obscured, Target Size, Focus Appearance). Call a pro when you want a real 2.2 AA audit — keyboard + screen reader + manual review — and a fix plan you can hand to your designer. For most East Texas small-business sites, that’s a 3-5 hour job with a 1-2 page report.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to upgrade to WCAG 2.2 if my site was 2.1 compliant?
You’re not legally required to — there’s no U.S. law that mandates a specific version. But courts and plaintiffs have started expecting 2.2 as the current best practice, so 2.1-only sites face harder defenses in 2026-2027 lawsuits.
Is WCAG 3.0 coming?
WCAG 3.0 is in draft and is not expected to be finalized before the late 2020s. Don’t wait for it — 2.2 AA is the near-term target.
How much does a WCAG 2.2 audit cost for a small business?
For a 10-25 page site, expect $500-$1,500 for a real manual audit plus a written report. Fixes on top of that vary — usually $500-$2,500 depending on how much of the underlying HTML needs changing.
Can automated tools tell me if I’m WCAG 2.2 compliant?
No. Automated tools catch a fraction of the issues (usually contrast, missing alt text, and heading order). The 2.2 additions — focus visibility, target size, drag alternatives — mostly need manual review.
Not sure if your site is WCAG 2.2 ready? Let’s do a real audit and give you a fix plan you can defend.