Wagtail’s second comprehensive ATAG audit, with the goal of driving next year’s roadmap for accessibility. A lot of progress has been made over the years, in particular recently with the addition of an accessibility checker built into the CMS.
High-level results conformance results at the success criteria level as per the W3C ATAG report tool, pass/fail:
This marks a small but clear improvement from the previous audit, that had a total of 22 Pass, 28 Fail, 12 Not applicable.
At the success criteria level, by level of conformance:
At the guidelines level as per the W3C Authoring Tools list, with partial support:
All of the audit was conducted on Wagtail 6.3 released on 2024-12-06, on the demo site Static Wagtail 6.3 demo unless indicated otherwise.
The full audit is available at wagtail.org/accessibility/atag-audit/
Reported on 63 of 63 Success Criteria.
| Success Criterion | Result | Observations |
|---|---|---|
| A.1.1.1: Web-Based Accessible (WCAG) (evaluated as Level AA) | Failed | Wagtail currently targets WCAG 2.2 AA and ATAG 2.0 AA conformance for the administrative interface of the CMS. Though a lot of progress has been made, there are still known conformance issues and possible improvements. As a representation of the state of Wagtail’s WCAG 2.2 AA conformance, here is a summary of WCAG 2.2 AA and best practice issues across releases, for the page editor UI (tested with Welcome to the Wagtail bakery!):
For a full tabular view of types of issues per release, see A.1.1.1 Web-Based Accessible (WCAG) - Wagtail ATAG 2.0 report Suggested next steps:
References:
Full list of 21 currently-documented accessibility issues in GitHub:
There have been 19 issues fixed since the last ATAG 2.0 audit:
|
| A.1.2.1: Accessibility Guidelines (Level A) | Not applicable | Wagtail is a web-based CMS. |
| A.1.2.2: Platform Accessibility Services (Level A) | Not applicable | Wagtail is a web-based CMS. |
| A.2.1.1: Text Alternatives for Rendered Non-Text Content (Level A) | Failed | For icons within the CMS, all have appropriate alt text. For CMS-managed images, Wagtail renders non-text content in nine scenarios, five of which are related to editing views and would require changes:
Outside editing views (possibly not part of ATAG requirements), Wagtail renders images in the following scenarios:
Recommendation for Wagtail: Consider how best to sign-post the Description field as the image’s alt text in the CMS, and potentially also in the frontend (with clear options to mark images as decorative or define alt text in context). |
| A.2.1.2: Alternatives for Rendered Time-Based Media (Level A) | Failed | Wagtail’s only time-based media is animated GIFs. Their text alternatives work identically to other images in Wagtail, with the same characteristics listed in SC A.2.1.1. |
| A.2.2.1: Editing-View Status Indicators (Level A) | Failed | Wagtail uses the following status indicators in editing views:
Outside editing views (possibly not part of ATAG requirements), Wagtail renders status indicators in the following scenarios:
|
| A.2.2.2: Access to Rendered Text Properties (Level AA) | Not applicable | Wagtail doesn’t allow editing of any text properties associated with the content. |
| A.3.1.1: Keyboard Access (Minimum) (Level A) | Failed | Though the majority of the authoring tool’s functionality is keyboard accessible, there are specific areas that aren’t:
|
| A.3.1.2: No Keyboard Traps (Level A) | Passed | There are no known keyboard traps in the administrative interface. |
| A.3.1.3: Efficient Keyboard Access (Level AA) | Passed | The administrative interface provides the following mechanisms to improve keyboard navigation:
|
| A.3.1.4: Keyboard Access (Enhanced) (Level AAA) | Failed | See A.3.1.1 Keyboard Access. We would expect addressing all aspects listed in A.3.1.1 to also address this criterion. |
| A.3.1.5: Customize Keyboard Access (Level AAA) | Failed | None of Wagtail’s keyboard commands can be customized. Proposed actions:
|
| A.3.1.6: Present Keyboard Commands (Level AAA) | Passed | Across specific areas:
Proposed actions:
|
| A.3.2.1: Auto-Save (minimum) (Level A) | Failed | Wagtail doesn’t provide auto-save functionality. For Wagtail sites, the default session time limit is 2 weeks. See Autosave #24 on the Wagtail roadmap. |
| A.3.2.2: Timing Adjustable (Level A) | Passed | For Wagtail sites, the default session time limit is 2 weeks. |
| A.3.2.3: Static Input Components (Level A) | Passed | There are no moving input components in the CMS. |
| A.3.2.4: Content Edits Saved (Extended) (Level AAA) | Failed | Wagtail doesn’t provide auto-save functionality. See A.3.2.1 Auto-Save (Minimum). We expect the same approach to be followed for both SCs. |
| A.3.3.1: Static View Option (Level A) | Failed | Animated GIFs auto-play when rendered, with no option to pause them. Proposed actions:
|
| A.3.4.1: Navigate by structure (Level AA) | Not applicable | Markup elements aren’t exposed in the CMS. |
| A.3.4.2: Navigate by Programmatic Relationships (Level AAA) | Passed | The only editable programmatic relationships are headings and element nesting in rich text fields, which can be navigated via the keyboard. |
| A.3.5.1: Text Search (Level AA) | Failed | Wagtail supports browsers’ built-in text search which meets all criteria, but only allows searching within the currently-active tab of the editing view. For example, for pages, content under the "Promote" tab will only be searchable when this tab is active. Proposed actions:
|
| A.3.6.1: Independence of Display (Level A) | Passed | All of Wagtail’s UI settings can be adjusted without modifying the content. |
| A.3.6.2: Save Settings (Level AA) | Passed | Specific settings are saved differently. The following settings are persistent for a given user profile, across all sessions of said user:
The following settings are persistent for a given browser, across all sessions within said browser:
|
| A.3.6.3: Apply Platform Settings (Level AA) | Passed | Wagtail’s language, time zone, and theme settings default to respecting platform settings until set to a specific value by the user. |
| A.3.7.1: Preview (Minimum) (Level A) | Passed | Wagtail’s live preview for pages and snippets and its draft renders within the user’s browser. |
| A.3.7.2: Preview (Enhanced) (Level AAA) | Passed | Wagtail’s live preview for pages and snippets can only display within the user’s browser, but all saved draft content can be previewed in any browser/device the user is logged in. |
| A.4.1.1: Content Changes Reversible (Minimum) (Level A) | Failed | Though a large number of authoring actions are reversible, not all are. The following actions are reversible:
The following actions are not reversible but do require confirmation to proceed:
The following actions are not reversible and do not require confirmation to proceed:
|
| A.4.1.2: Settings Change Confirmation (Level A) | Passed | All of Wagtail’s UI settings saved at the browser level can be reversed by the user directly within the UI. All of the settings saved at the user profile level can be set to an "unset" default value. Recommendation for Wagtail:
|
| A.4.1.3: Content Changes Reversible (Enhanced) (Level AAA) | Passed | Reversible plain text and rich text content changes can be reversed sequentially while the user remains on the page. Content supporting revisions can be restored at any point in the content’s history. |
| A.4.2.1: Describe Accessibility Features (Level A) | Passed | The following functionality would be used to meet Part A and needs to be described either in the documentation or in the user interface: The following functionality is described in the user interface:
The following functionality is described in the documentation:
The following functionality is provided by the underlying platform:
|
| A.4.2.2: Document All Features (Level AA) | Failed | Here is a high-level record of whether given functionality is documented. As a summary:
This record does not cover functionality provided by the underlying platform (for example; automated embed creation) or unused by authors. For a full record of documentation status across 145 features divided in 19 functional areas, see A.4.2.2 Document All Features - Wagtail ATAG 2.0 report. |
| B.1.1.1: Content Auto-Generation After Authoring Sessions (WCAG) (evaluated as Level AAA) | Passed | Wagtail doesn’t automatically generate content after authoring sessions. Processes that operate after authoring sessions and could alter the content are scheduled publishing and search index updates, but in both cases any automatically-generated content would already be present during the session. |
| B.1.1.2: Content Auto-Generation During Authoring Sessions (WCAG) (evaluated as Level AA) | Passed | Wagtail automatically generates content in a few scenarios. In the following scenarios, markup is accessible without further work:
|
| B.1.2.1: Restructuring and Recoding Transformations (evaluated as Level AA) | Not applicable | The only transformation present in Wagtail is processing of clipboard paste information in rich text fields to sanitize the content, which preserves accessibility semantics for preserved content, but isn’t considered a content transformation per ATAG. If it was considered a content transformation – rich paste processing preserves all formatting supported in rich text fields. Heading levels, bullet lists, and image alt text are preserved in particular. |
| B.1.2.2: Copy-Paste Inside Authoring Tool (WCAG) (evaluated as Level AA) | Passed | Wagtail supports copy-paste of rich text content, which is fully preserved when copy-pasting between fields configured to support the same formatting. Fields configured differently will accordingly have their formatting stripped as needed. |
| B.1.2.3: Optimizations Preserve Accessibility (Level A) | Not applicable | Wagtail doesn’t perform any optimizations that would affect accessibility. |
| B.1.2.4: Text Alternatives for Non-Text Content are Preserved (Level A) | Not applicable | See B.1.2.1 Restructuring and Recoding Transformations (WCAG). |
| B.2.1.1: Ensure that accessible content production is possible. (evaluated as Level AA) | Failed | Wagtail places extensive restrictions on the production of web content, which all nonetheless allow for the production of accessible content, with the exception of:
Proposed actions: |
| B.2.2.1: Accessible Option Prominence (WCAG) (evaluated as Level AA) | Passed | Where text styling options are available, they are presented alongside semantic formatting options such as headings. This is for example the case in rich text formatting options. For StreamField block formats, the order is up to each site implementer to decide on. There are no built-in formats that are automatically included. |
| B.2.2.2: Setting Accessibility Properties (WCAG) (evaluated as Level AA) | Not applicable | Wagtail doesn’t support setting web content attribute values. This has been discussed extensively for links, as well as an option to set See: |
| B.2.3.1: Alternative Content is Editable (WCAG) (evaluated as Level AA) | Passed | All areas where images can be used support providing alt text. This includes:
|
| B.2.3.2: Automating Repair of Text Alternatives (Level A) | Passed | Wagtail doesn’t attempt to repair text alternatives. It does use the image’s file name as the default value for the image’s title field when creating a new image, which is used for alt text, but this is part of the upload/editing process (In-Session Repairs) and not an automated process. Said file name is filtered by default to remove the file extension. |
| B.2.3.3: Save for Reuse (Level AAA) | Failed | By default, Wagtail saves each image’s text alternative and reuses it everywhere the image is reused ("Save and Suggest"). It is possible to replace this text alternative with a new one, but it isn’t possible to delete it. Suggested action: incorporate this requirement into the contextual alt text support. |
| B.2.4.1: Accessible Template Options (WCAG) (evaluated as Level AA) | Failed | With rich text formatting and StreamField blocks, Wagtail provides templates for basic text content as well as complex formatting like tables. Wagtail also provides templates for form fields within its forms module. Specific templates have accessibility issues.
This may be addressed in the future, via improvements in Django. See:
Proposed actions:
For a full tabular view of all template options’ status, see B.2.4. Assist authors with accessible templates - Wagtail ATAG 2.0 report. |
| B.2.4.2: Identify Template Accessibility (Level AA) | Passed | Wagtail’s template selection mechanism is the block chooser (or field chooser for form builder fields). In both cases, there would be no options defined unless configured by site implementers, which can customize block icons or labels / names to indicate accessible block types. |
| B.2.4.3: Author-Created Templates (Level AA) | Not applicable | Wagtail doesn’t allow authors to create custom block templates. |
| B.2.4.4: Accessible Template Options (Enhanced) (Level AAA) | Failed | Some of Wagtail’s template options aren’t accessible. See B.2.4.1 Accessible Template Options. |
| B.2.5.1: Accessible Pre-Authored Content Options (Level AA) | Not applicable | Wagtail doesn’t provide pre-authored content. |
| B.2.5.2: Identify Pre-Authored Content Accessibility (Level AA) | Not applicable | Wagtail doesn’t provide pre-authored content. |
| B.3.1.1: Checking Assistance (WCAG) (evaluated as Level A) | Passed | There are a number of formatting / content entry options in the CMS that can lead to accessibility issues. The built-in accessibility checker provides automated tests for a number of possible issues, but not all. Available checks are:
There are a number of success criteria that do not have automated checks nor instructions for manual checking:
Proposed actions:
|
| B.3.1.2: Help Authors Decide (Level A) | Not applicable | Currently all of Wagtail’s automated checks are pass/fail with no author input required. Discussion on further checks: Content quality checkers #11063 |
| B.3.1.3: Help Authors Locate (Level A) | Not applicable | Currently all of Wagtail’s automated checks are pass/fail with no author input required. Those checks do indicate which elements they are flagging. Proposed improvements:
|
| B.3.1.4: Status Report (Level AA) | Passed | Wagtail’s accessibility checker reports on the number of detected issues, and upon interaction lists all rules that detected problems and where on the page. Possible improvements:
|
| B.3.1.5: Programmatic Association of Results (Level AA) | Failed | Currently the association isn’t programmatic, due to expected compatibility issues. Possible resolution: Correct identification of Wagtail content so errors are only reported on CMS-managed content. |
| B.3.2.1: Repair Assistance (WCAG (evaluated as Level AA) | Failed | Currently Wagtail’s 9 rules report the presence of a problem but do not suggest specific solutions. Proposed improvements:
|
| B.4.1.1: Features Active by Default (Level A) | Passed | Wagtail’s accessibility checker is on by default and cannot be turned off unless site implementers make CMS customizations in code. |
| B.4.1.2: Option to Reactivate Features (Level A) | Passed | See B.4.1.1 Features Active by Default. |
| B.4.1.3: Feature Deactivation Warning (Level AA) | Passed | See B.4.1.1 Features Active by Default. |
| B.4.1.4: Feature Prominence (Level AA) | Passed | Wagtail currently has no features relating to invalid markup, syntax errors, spelling errors, grammar errors. Possible future changes:
|
| B.4.2.1: Model Practice (WCAG) (evaluated as Level AA) | Failed | Wagtail’s documentation for content authors does not demonstrate accessible authoring practices. The documentation for developers does: Accessibility considerations. Proposed actions:
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| B.4.2.2: Feature Instructions (Level A) | Passed | Wagtail’s accessibility checker, heading levels, and alt text implementation are documented in the guide for content authors. The documentation for developers also cover this. Proposed actions:
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| B.4.2.3: Tutorial (Level AAA) | Failed | Wagtail’s accessibility features doesn’t have a tutorial. Proposed actions:
|
| B.4.2.4: Instruction Index (Level AAA) | Failed | Wagtail’s documentation for content author does not have such an index. The documentation for developers does. Proposed actions:
|
Created with ATAG Report Tool version 0.6.0