Let users review answers before final submission
Before the transaction commits, show the reader everything they entered and let them change it. G98 is that technique, and W3C counts it as sufficient for the error-prevention rule at Level AA, which sits inside the level accessibility law generally points at. The rule's scope is narrower than the word consequential. It covers legal commitments, financial transactions, changes or deletions to data the user controls, and submitted test answers. A one-page form gets this for free, since everything is on the screen at once. A form spread across five steps does not, and that is the case the technique was written for. Two routes satisfy it. Let the reader move back and forward between steps at will, or show a summary of everything before the commit with a way to correct each part.
How we find it in an audit
Multi-step flows get walked end to end with mistakes planted deliberately early. A wrong address on step one, a wrong quantity on step two. Then the question is whether those mistakes are visible before the commit, and whether they can be corrected without starting the whole thing again. Checkouts, applications, booking flows and anything touching money or a legal commitment get this treatment. A summary showing totals and hiding the details gets flagged, because the detail is the part people get wrong.
How affected users experience it
A screen-reader user cannot glance back at step two while standing on step five. Everything they entered is out of reach, held in memory alone, so a summary at the end is their only chance to check the work. Somebody with a cognitive disability or a memory difference needs that same page for the same reason. And a mistake caught before the commit is a correction. The same mistake caught afterwards is a phone call, a form, and a week.
Passes vs. fails
Passes
Review your order lists items, address and payment, with an Edit link on each section, and Place order comes after all of it.
Fails
Place order sits directly after the card fields, so a wrong shipping address gets discovered by way of the courier.
Other ways to satisfy this rule
7 guides on this site are filed under 3.3.4 Error Prevention (Legal, Financial, Data). W3C lists this one as sufficient for that rule on its own. Implement it correctly, in a way your readers' software actually supports, and the rule is met.
- G99sufficientMake deleted data recoverable
- G155sufficientAdd a confirmation checkbox before final submission
- G164sufficientState how long requests can be canceled
- G168sufficientAsk for confirmation before completing risky actions
- G199advisoryConfirm success when a submission works
- SCR18advisoryValidate in the browser and describe the error
This guide is our interpretation of W3C technique G98: Providing the ability for the user to review and correct answers before submitting. W3C publishes its techniques as guidance rather than as the standard, and says so on every one of them. The success criterion is what conformance is measured against, and a technique is one documented way to meet it.