ADA, WCAG, and VPAT: A Quick Explainer of Common Accessibility Terms

April 24th, 2026, the ADA Title II deadline, is a few weeks away, and many meetings have been held about how to get everything in order before the date.

For people working in education and publishing, terms like WCAG, VPAT, and ACR are used in conversations about compliance. Many may not know what they mean. Just a few sentences ago, the term “ADA Title II” was used, but there’s no guarantee that someone reading this blog will know what Title II of the ADA is – or what “ADA” means.

Knowing the definitions of these common accessibility shorthands will make compliance easier to understand and implement.

The ADA: A History

The ADA is the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. It is a civil rights law that offers legal protections for people with disabilities. These protections are laid out in three main sections, or titles, of the law. Title II of the ADA states that public entities, like schools and state colleges, cannot discriminate against those with disabilities, and that all services offered must not be discriminatory.

On April 24th, 2024, the Department of Justice issued a final ruling regarding digital accessibility as it applies to Title II. All public entities must make their online offerings, including websites and apps, accessible to people with disabilities. To measure how and if websites were accessible, the Department of Justice declared WCAG 2.1 AA as the standard to measure accessibility compliance.

WCAG: What It Is and What the Standard Is

WCAG is an acronym that stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. It was developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international organization that creates and develops web standards for any and all devices that connect to the Internet. In 1999, the W3C published its first version of WCAG, establishing accessibility standards for websites on a global scale for the first time. W3C released the newest version of WCAG, 2.2, in 2023.

The “2.1” in “WCAG 2.1 AA” is the version number to be followed. Across versions, various guidelines may be updated, added, or taken out in a few cases, so it’s important to keep in mind that a page that is compliant with WCAG version 2.2 is not inherently compliant with the legal requirement of WCAG version 2.1.

Principles, Success Criteria, and Conformance Levels: How WCAG Is Organized

The WCAG is structured into four main principles to look out for when determining if sites and apps are accessible. There are four principles:

1. Perceivable.

2. Operable.

3. Understandable.

4. Robust.

The principles are often referred to by their acronym, POUR. Among the four principles, WCAG is broken down into thirteen guidelines, and those thirteen guidelines are broken down into seventy-eight success criteria.

For the purposes of accessibility compliance, the success criteria are the most important to keep in mind, because this is how non-compliance is measured during an accessibility audit. For example, if an accessibility consultant tests a website for a client and notices that a login screen uses the color red to indicate a required field, and no other method is used to communicate this information to the user, the accessibility consultant will point to a specific success criterion – in this case, SC. 1.4.1 Color Alone –  to show the client that their website does not meet the WCAG, and under US law, the legal standard.

Each success criterion is also given a conformance level to distinguish its severity. There are three levels: A, AA, and AAA. They are typically pronounced like “Single A”, “Double A”, and “Triple A”, like the batteries you might find at a store.

Level A represents a basic, bare-minimum threshold for making a website accessible. Level AA is more thorough and is often used as the benchmark in many national and international standards. Level AAA is the strongest and most encompassing of the levels, but certain content is inherently unable to reach this level, so reaching AA is often what is prioritized.

The levels are inclusive of each previous level, which means that AA compliance will have to conform to all success criteria that are Level A and AA.

VPAT and ACR: How Organizations Can Meet Accessibility Standards

With all of these standards, benchmarks, and criteria, how do companies and institutions bring their sites up to speed and implement accessibility compliance? Vendors like Magic EdTech can offer their services to test and audit a site, both manually and with automated tools. After testing a site thoroughly, A VPAT can be used to make an ACR to present to a client.

VPAT is an acronym for Voluntary Product Accessibility Template. Created by the Information Technology Industry (ITI) Council,  it is a free-to-use template document to help organize findings from auditing and testing. There are many different types of VPAT designed for different markets and products, but for the purposes of a public service meeting ADA Title II requirements, the WCAG VPAT should cover all requirements.

ACR stands for Accessibility Conformance Report. ACR and VPAT are often used interchangeably, but there is a key difference between them. The ACR is the output of a completed VPAT. While a VPAT is a standardized template designed for internal compliance work, the ACR is what is given to the client at the end of the auditing process to explain not just what accessibility standards need to be met, but also how standards are not being met and how to implement fixes.

A client might ask for a VPAT to ensure compliance is being met, but what they probably want and need is a completed ACR. For example, a VPAT could indicate that success criterion 1.4.3 isn’t being met on a particular website. However, an ACR will explain that this means that there are non-text contrast issues on your site, explain that the contrast between foreground and background elements needs to be at least a 3:1 ratio to be accessible, and suggest how to correct this issue.

How Accessibility Standards Make Compliance Easier

Accessibility compliance often involves dealing with many different standards, documents, and acronyms. Despite these technical details, understanding the fundamentals of accessibility compliance doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, by using standards and templates, companies like Magic EdTech can help clients cover their accessibility needs quickly and efficiently.

Ultimately, public services need to make their online offerings accessible by April 24th. To do so, vendors and service providers can use international standards like WCAG to test websites and apps, compile their findings in a VPAT, and present a completed ACR to the client to offer a roadmap to accessibility compliance.