WCAG 3.0 is an active W3C Working Draft in development by the AGWG. Requirements, assertions, the conformance model and reporting tiers are still being developed and may change. The latest published draft is the 10 September 2026 Working Draft; this site follows the editors’ draft, which also includes exploratory provisions.
developingCore requirement
Sound Not Relied On
Group: images-and-media • Guideline: single-sense
Summary in Plain English
Sound alone cannot be the only carrier of information, except where the content is itself audio-based media.
Why It Matters
A beep signalling success or an error is silent for deaf users, for anyone with the volume down, and for anyone in a noisy place.
Information conveyed includes but is not limited to presenting data or meaning, indicating an action, prompting a response, distinguishing between items, conveying boundaries. Artistic expression is not part of information conveyed.
For each instance where information is conveyed by sound:
Check that the information is also conveyed in a way that does not use sound, for instance with a visual, text, or haptic indicator.
Expected results
#1 is true.
W3C Working Group Status
W3C Maturity Status:developing
Track / Group:images-and-media
The draft records no open editors' notes on this provision.
W3C Threads on This Provision
No GitHub issue in w3c/wcag3 carries this provision's label, so there
is no recorded discussion to show. Cross-cutting threads that name no
provision are listed on the
Discussions page.
WCAG 2.2 Criteria That Map Here
From this site's reviewed WCAG 2.2 → WCAG 3 map. The map is
an interpretation, not a W3C mapping: W3C has not published one yet.
No mapping recorded. No WCAG 2.2 criterion in
this site's map is recorded as a predecessor of this provision.
Information is not conveyed by sound alone.
:::except-when
* Content is audio-based media.
:::
:::note
Information conveyed includes but is not limited to presenting data or meaning, indicating an action, prompting a response, distinguishing between items, conveying boundaries. Artistic expression is not part of information conveyed.
:::