The guidelines, named the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, complement a pair of existing W3C guidelines on making web content accessible. These are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 Recommendation which explains to authors how to create accessible web content, and the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 1.0 Recommendation which explains to software developers how to design authoring tools that are accessible to authors with disabilities, and that produce accessible Web content.
The guidelines for designers of user agents state the problems which should be considered when taking into account disabled web access. These problems are given three levels of priority, with priority 3 problems being those which, if remedied, would be useable by a disabled person, priority 2 problems being those which make it very difficult for disabled users to access the web, and priority 1 problems those which could prevent a disabled person using a feature altogether.
Among the principle concerns of the guidelines is the use of the keyboard by disabled users and ensuring that users can interact with the user agent through a variety of input/output devices such as full pointing device support or full voice support.
In the UK, the Disability Discrimination Act contains rules on making sites reasonably accessible by the disabled and all UK sites should comply, though few actually meet the recommended levels. To date, the provisions, which came into force in 1999, have not been enforced. The W3C guidelines are often referred to as an example of best practice.