POUR Principles
The POUR framework defines four key accessibility principles—Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust—guiding the creation of digital content that everyone can see, navigate, comprehend, and use across devices and assistive technologies.
The global standards for accessible digital design are defined by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These standards are created and maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)—an international organization that defines and documents best practices and principles of web development. The WCAG standards are made up of specific requirements and guidance for how to design and develop accessible websites and applications.
The WC3 has organized the WCAG standards around four major principles—requiring digital solutions to be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Together, these principles make up the POUR framework.
While these principals are the foundation of digital accessibility, and the WCAG guidelines, they are not a checklist. Rather, they are meant to create a system of how to think about and evaluate the functional effectiveness of your website.
POUR Pillars
1. Perceivable: Information must be presented in ways users can detect
To be perceivable, your website content all users should be able to consume its content—including those with vision and hearing loss. When evaluating the perceivibility of your website ,ask yourself if anyone would be unable to receive the information it provides.