Which criteria are included?

The dataset covers the Level A and AA success criteria from WCAG 2.1 across all four principles — Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust. Each entry includes the official number and name plus a practitioner-focused summary and failure example.

How does the fuzzy search work?

Your query is split into tokens and matched against each criterion's number, name, summary, and guideline. Exact number matches rank highest, followed by number prefixes and keyword hits, so 2.4 surfaces all of guideline 2.4.

What is the difference between Level A and AA?

Level A is the minimum set of criteria, and Level AA adds the criteria most organisations and laws target, including the EU Web Accessibility Directive and the UK Public Sector Bodies regulations. AAA is the highest and is rarely required wholesale.

Are the failure examples official?

The summaries paraphrase the normative text and the failure examples are common real-world mistakes drawn from W3C techniques and audit experience. Always confirm against the official Understanding documents before formally citing a failure.

Does the tool make any network requests?

No. The criteria dataset is bundled into the page and all searching happens in your browser, so you can use it offline and without sending your audit queries anywhere.

WCAG 2.1 Success Criteria Search

The WCAG 2.1 Success Criteria Search lets accessibility practitioners find the right success criterion in seconds instead of scrolling the W3C site. Type a keyword, a criterion number, or a guideline number and the tool returns ranked matches with a plain-language summary, the conformance level, and a typical failure to test for.

How it works

Tokenise the query. Your search text is lowercased and split into tokens. A number like 2.4.7 is matched exactly; a prefix like 2.4 matches every criterion under that guideline; words like contrast or focus match against names and summaries.
Score and rank. Each criterion gets a score: an exact number match scores highest, then number prefixes, then keyword hits, with whole-word matches weighted above partial ones. Results are sorted by score and then by criterion number.
Filter by level. An optional Level A / AA filter narrows the pool to your conformance target before ranking.

Tips and example

Search media to surface the time-based media criteria (1.2.x), or error to surface the input-assistance criteria (3.3.x).
Use the criterion number filter when writing audit reports so you cite the exact 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) reference reviewers expect.
The “common failure” line is a starting point for your test plan, not an exhaustive list — combine it with the official Understanding and Techniques documents.