State & journey matrix · WCAG Grammar

This material is a specification and reference set. It is not an accessibility scanner, a legal opinion, a certification, or evidence of a completed audit. Sample observations are explicitly untested, and WCAG 3 is draft guidance rather than the target here.

State, transition and journey coverage

The unit of evaluation

test instance =
  criterion or policy
  × concrete object
  × state/transition
  × action
  × declared environment
  × reproducible fixture

A component that works at rest may fail while loading, expanded, invalid, filtered or recovering from an error. An empty inventory is an inventory failure, not a vacuous universal pass.

State vocabulary

Use only states that actually exist for the object. Do not turn every word below into an artificial test.

State family	Relevant possibilities
Interaction	Default, hover, keyboard focus, pressed, selected, expanded, collapsed.
Data	Empty, populated, loading, partial data, stale data, no results.
Validation	Untouched, valid, missing required value, invalid format, server rejection.
Outcome	Success, failure, cancellation, timeout, retry, completed, undo.
Access	Anonymous, authenticated, role-limited, expired session, permission denied.
Presentation	Narrow/wide, zoomed, text overrides, dark/light, forced colors, reduced motion, long translation.

Every observed transition has a before state, triggering action, expected next state, expected focus destination, announcement expectation where relevant and recovery path. Expectations can be not applicable with reasons.

Context selection

Declare supported browsers and assistive-technology combinations rather than claiming all combinations were tested. Select them from the intended audience, product support commitments and accessibility support evidence. Record exact versions at execution time.

Risk-based pairwise coverage can reduce the low-risk combinatorial burden. It is an internal efficiency strategy, not proof that untested combinations conform. Require direct coverage of known failures, critical transitions, new custom controls, high-impact dependencies and complete selected processes. Add representative and randomly selected content to discover template assumptions and unusual content. [S-EM]

Test accessibility with people with disabilities where feasible. User observations complement, rather than replace, technical standards evaluation; no small group represents every need. [S-USERS]

Required e-commerce journey inventory

Journey	Include
Discover and compare	Search, suggestions, filters, sort, results, no results, pagination, product details.
Build cart	Variants, quantity, stock errors, add/remove, cart updates, discounts and invalid codes.
Authenticate	Login, password-manager/paste behavior, recovery, one-time codes, lockout messaging.
Checkout	Address, delivery, billing, reused information, validation, order review, submit.
Payment and recovery	Embedded fields, declined payment, retry, session expiry, cancellation and success.
After purchase	Confirmation, receipt, order lookup, tracking, cancellation/return where offered.

Use payment sandboxes and synthetic personal data. No live purchase, deletion or customer communication is authorized merely by adopting this grammar.

Required CRUD journey inventory

Operation	Include
Create	Open form, enter data, missing/invalid values, submit, success, duplicate detection.
Read	Navigate records, headings/table relationships, search, filters, empty states, details.
Update	Open editor, field relationships, concurrent/stale data, save, server error, confirmation.
Delete	Identify target, understand consequences, confirmation/undo design, cancel, delete, focus continuation.

Also include bulk selection, select-all scope, sort state, pagination, row actions, file uploads and permissions when those exist. Data correctness and access authorization remain separate functional/security obligations even when accessibility is the primary focus.

Why complete processes matter

A conformance assessment cannot treat an accessible start screen as sufficient for an inaccessible process. Scope full pages and all pages in a covered process, including essential third-party steps. Any proposed alternative version needs the standard's conditions, not simply a contact-us workaround. [S-CONFORMANCE]

Evidence freshness policy

This grammar proposes build-scoped evidence. A material change to a component, content, dependency or environment invalidates affected observations unless reviewed impact analysis establishes continued applicability. Do not erase historical results; create a new assessment linked to the previous one.