WCAG, explained for business owners (not developers)

WCAG stands for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and the full document reads like exactly what it is — a technical standard written by and for standards engineers. You don't need to read it to understand what it's asking for, though. It all comes down to four ideas, usually remembered by the acronym POUR.

Perceivable

Can someone actually perceive your content, through whatever sense they have available? This is where alt text on images, captions on video, and sufficient color contrast all live — different ways of making sure information isn't delivered through only one channel (like sight) that some visitors don't have access to.

Operable

Can someone actually operate your site's controls? This is about keyboard access for people who can't use a mouse, giving people enough time to complete things like timed forms, and making sure interactive elements are big enough and clear enough to actually hit and use.

Understandable

Does your content and your interface behave in ways people can understand and predict? Consistent navigation, clear error messages on forms, and labels that actually describe what a field is asking for all fall under this.

Robust

Does your site keep working as the technology accessing it changes — different browsers, different assistive technology, different devices? This is mostly about using standard, well-formed HTML instead of markup that happens to look right in one browser but breaks for anyone using something else.

Every individual rule in WCAG — and every issue a scanner like AccessLens flags — traces back to one of these four ideas. When a report tells you a button has no accessible name, that's a Perceivable/Operable problem: someone using a screen reader can't perceive what the button does, so they can't operate it. Once you see the pattern, the specific rules stop feeling arbitrary.