Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Overview
Published
The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) is a W3C standard that provides guidelines for authoring tool (tools used in creating web content like website builders, CMSs, blog editors, and code editors) to be more accessible. It is divided into two parts:
- Part A: Make the tool itself accessible to authors with disabilities.
- Part B: Help authors create accessible content.
ATAG aligns with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 so that tools support WCAG based accessible content.
I only recently discovered ATAG was a thing. Before that, I was always mildly curious about accessibility (A11y) standards for authoring tools, though I just assumed web-based tools (like WordPress and Canva) followed WCAG because why wouldn't they? But I was even more curious about non-web tools (like VS Code) and how they manage accessibility. Turns out, there's actually a standard. Who knew? (Well, now I do.)
Examples of Authoring Tools
If an application lets people create, edit, or publish web content (like webpages, articles, web forms, videos, online courses, or even code that runs on the web), it counts as an authoring tool. And yep, that means it should follow ATAG.
Some popular examples of authoring tools include:
- Content Management Systems (CMS): WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Wix, Squarespace, Ghost, Webflow
- Website Builders & Page Editors: Elementor, Divi, Gutenberg, Dreamweaver, Google Sites.
- Rich Text / WYSIWYG Editors: CKEditor, TinyMCE, Quill, Froala, ProseMirror
- Learning & eLearning Platforms: Canvas LMS, Blackboard
- Form Builders: Google Forms, Typeform, Jotform
- eCommerce Platforms (with content creation): Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce
- Blogging & Publishing Platforms: Medium, Dev.to, Hashnode, Substack
- Graphic & Media Tools (with web outputs): Canva, Figma, Adobe Express
- Social/Marketing Tools with Editors: Mailchimp, HubSpot
- Developer Tools with Visual Editors: VS Code, WebStorm, GitHub Pages editors
Basically, if it helps you put something on the web, ATAG probably applies!
ATAG 2.0 Layers
ATAG is organized into:
- Parts (A and B).
- Principles: Each part has principles that keep things organized.
- Guidelines: Principles break down into guidelines, which are helpful (but not directly testable) objectives.
- Success Criteria Guidelines have testable success criteria. The success criteria are used for requirements and conformance testing. Each success criterion also contains conformance levels (A, AA, AAA)
- Implementing ATAG 2.0 document: Each success criterion has a helpful "Implementing" section. It includes descriptions, intent, relatable examples, and links to additional resources .
If you're familar with WCAG 2, then you already understand how the principles, guidelines and success criteria is layered.
I have updated my Google Sheet it now has a list of all the ATAG layers.