WCAG Conformance Matrix
The conformance section of a scan report — its four results, which criteria it covers, and what automated testing can and cannot tell you.
The conformance section — Where you stand on the Summary tab — re-pivots your issue list against the WCAG success criteria for the version and level the scan targeted.
It shows every criterion for your WCAG level in four boxes — for example, all 50 in WCAG 2.1 AA — so the four numbers always add up to the total. Click See list under a number to see the criteria in that box, each linked to its W3C page.
Automated tooling can evaluate only a minority of WCAG. axe-core, the engine behind TestKase scans, carries rules touching 29 success criteria in total across every version and level. Everything else needs a person.
The four results
| Result | What it means |
|---|---|
| Failing | At least one confirmed issue mapped to this criterion. |
| No problems found | An automated rule exists, it ran, and it found nothing wrong. |
| Needs a person to decide | A rule ran and could not determine the answer. |
| Can't be tested by tools | No automated rule covers this criterion. TestKase did not test it. Click the ⓘ for a short explanation. |
"No problems found" is not "passed". It means automated checks found nothing, on the subset of the criterion a machine can see. "Can't be tested by tools" is never counted towards conformance — a criterion we cannot evaluate is reported as untested, not as met.
Which criteria are covered
The criteria listed follow the version and level the scan was configured for:
| Target | Criteria |
|---|---|
| WCAG 2.0 A + AA | 38 |
| WCAG 2.1 A + AA | 50 |
| WCAG 2.2 A + AA | 55 |
WCAG 2.2 adds nine success criteria over 2.1 (2.4.11, 2.4.12, 2.4.13, 2.5.7, 2.5.8, 3.2.6, 3.3.7, 3.3.8, 3.3.9) and removes 4.1.1 Parsing, which is obsolete in that version. A 2.2 scan therefore will not report 4.1.1 at all, and a 2.1 scan still will.
Selecting AAA includes the Level AAA criteria as well. Very few of them can be evaluated automatically, so most will land in Can't be tested by tools.
What is listed
Only the failing criteria are enumerated, each linking to its W3C reference page. Criteria with nothing wrong are counted, not listed: a wall of items marked fine buries the handful that are not, which is the whole reason to read this section.
Clicking a criterion opens the W3C quickref in a new tab. To see the issues behind a criterion, use the All Issues tab and group by WCAG.
Using this for compliance reporting
This section tells you where a scan found problems. It is not a conformance certificate, and it does not pretend to be one — which is what the coverage line at the top is for.
- Choose the version and level you must conform to (often WCAG 2.1 AA or 2.2 AA).
- Scan your in-scope URLs.
- Work through every failing criterion, using the fix plan for the order.
- Review each needs a person to decide item by hand.
- Review every criterion in Can't be tested by tools by hand. This is the largest group, and no amount of re-scanning will shrink it.
- Re-scan until nothing is failing — remembering that this only covers what automated testing can detect.
Automated testing cannot prove conformance on its own. A formal claim still needs manual review of the criteria no tool can evaluate, and this report tells you exactly how many those are.
Export the report as a PDF for your audit trail; a CSV summary is also available. Both carry the same sections as the screen. See Export formats.