Re-authenticating
Tier 1 · The normative floor
Baseline compliance
What the normative text of WCAG 2.2 requires, and nothing more. Only a failure of this tier is a WCAG failure.
The bare minimum
When an authenticated session expires, the user can continue the activity without losing data after signing in again.
Normative text
Verbatim from WCAG 2.2, W3C Recommendation 12 December 2024. Underlined terms are defined below.
When an authenticated session expires, the user can continue the activity without loss of data after re-authenticating.
Tier 2 · The gap
Usability & user impact
Where content can meet this criterion and still make things harder for people with disabilities. These are not failures of SC 2.2.5, so raise them as usability defects. Known failures, including failures of related criteria, are listed in Tier 1.
Re-authentication that drops the user on a home page technically keeps their data but loses their place.
Tier 3 · The golden path
Recommended best practice
The pattern that meets the floor, closes the gap, and avoids audit disputes. A recommendation, not a requirement.
Re-authenticate in place, for example in a dialog, and return the user to exactly where they were.
W3C's Understanding document and techniques for SC 2.2.5 ↗ are informative: sufficient techniques show ways to pass, and documented failures show common ways to fail, but neither changes what the criterion requires.
How SC 2.2.5 maps to the WCAG 3 draft
From this site's reviewed map to the WCAG 3 editor's draft. It's an interpretation: W3C has not published a mapping.
No provision in the current draft covers re-authentication.
Related, not a successor
From WCAG 2.2, section 5.1: “The main content of WCAG 2.2 is normative and defines requirements that impact conformance claims. Introductory material, appendices, sections marked as "non-normative", diagrams, examples, and notes are informative (non-normative). Non-normative material provides advisory information to help interpret the guidelines but does not create requirements that impact a conformance claim.”