Level AAAUnderstandable
3.3.6

Error Prevention (All)

The strict version: any form that submits data must be reversible, checked, or confirmed, not just legal or financial ones.

In plain English

The AA rule (3.3.4) protects only the high-stakes forms, payments, legal agreements, data changes. This AAA rule applies the same care to every form on your store, right down to a newsletter signup or contact form. Each should be reversible, checked for errors with a chance to fix them, or confirmed before it finalises.

In practice, a well-built form that validates input and lets people correct mistakes already covers most of this. The stretch is doing it consistently on all of them.

Who this is for

  • People with cognitive, motor, or vision differences, more prone to input slips.
  • Everyone, who occasionally mistypes and wants a chance to fix it.

How to check and fix it yourself

List every form on your store. Each should validate entries, show clear errors, and let people correct before it commits (or allow an undo).

Checkout: review step before paying.                    ✓
Contact form: inline validation + correct before send.  ✓
A form that submits instantly with no validation.       ✗

Where we can help

We inventory every form on your store and check each for validation, correction, or confirmation, then flag the gaps. It builds on the same safeguards you can spot in a self-check.

How to meet it

Techniques the W3C accepts as sufficient (summarized). Follow a link for the full method.

Frequently asked questions

What does error prevention (all) require?+

Success Criterion 3.3.6 (Level AAA) says any submission of information by the user must be reversible, checked for errors with a chance to correct, or confirmed before it's final, for all forms, not only legal, financial, or data-changing ones.

How is this different from 3.3.4?+

3.3.4 Error Prevention (Legal, Financial, Data) (Level AA) applies those safeguards only to high-stakes forms. 3.3.6 (AAA) extends the same protection to every form on the site, including newsletter signups, contact forms, and searches.

Is this realistic for a store?+

It's more work than the AA version because it covers every form. In practice, well-built forms already validate input and let people correct mistakes, which satisfies much of it. The stricter part is applying that consistently everywhere.

Reference

This is a plain-language explainer. The authoritative source is the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2.

WCAG 2.2 © W3C. Excerpts are paraphrased; see the linked documents for the normative text.

Not sure if your store passes 3.3.6?

A human auditor checks this and every other criterion against your live store, and documents the result.

Book an audit