You optimise your product pages. You tweak your checkout flow. You A\/B test your hero banners. But there is a whole class of problems on your site that most store owners never check: accessibility barriers that silently turn customers away.<\/p>\n
About 1 in 5 people have some form of disability. That includes visual impairments, motor limitations, cognitive differences, and hearing loss. If your site is not usable for them, they leave. They do not complain. They do not write you a support ticket. They just go somewhere else.<\/p>\n
Accessibility problems do not just affect people with permanent disabilities. A broken form label also confuses someone using their phone one-handed on a crowded train. Tiny text also frustrates someone squinting at their screen in bright sunlight. Accessibility is usability for everyone, not a niche concern.<\/p>\n
There is also a legal dimension. In Australia, the Disability Discrimination Act requires digital services to be accessible. In the US, ADA lawsuits over website accessibility have risen year over year. Ignoring this is not just lost revenue. It is risk.<\/p>\n
Start with a free automated tool. These will not catch everything, but they catch the obvious problems fast.<\/p>\n
Tools to use:<\/strong><\/p>\n Run all three on your homepage, your top 3 product pages, and your checkout page. These are your highest-traffic pages and the ones where accessibility problems hurt most.<\/p>\n Automated tools catch about 30% of accessibility problems. The rest require manual checking. Focus on these five, which are the most common and the most damaging for e-commerce:<\/p>\n 1. Alt text on product images<\/strong><\/p>\n Every product image needs alt text that describes what the product looks like. Not “IMG_4839.jpg.” Not “product image.” Something like “White ceramic vase with rounded base, 15cm tall, matte finish.” This is also an SEO opportunity. Good alt text helps Google Image Search send you traffic.<\/p>\n 2. Keyboard navigation<\/strong><\/p>\n Put your mouse away. Can you tab through your entire site? Can you open menus, select variants, add to cart, and complete checkout using only the keyboard? If you get stuck anywhere, that is a barrier. Customers using screen readers or keyboard-only navigation will hit the same wall.<\/p>\n 3. Colour contrast<\/strong><\/p>\n Check your body text against your background. The minimum ratio is 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text. Use WebAIM’s contrast checker. Common offenders: light grey text on white, pastel buttons with white labels, and placeholder text in form fields.<\/p>\n 4. Form labels<\/strong><\/p>\n Every input field needs a visible label that is programmatically connected to it. Placeholder text inside the field is not a label. When someone uses autofill or a screen reader, the label tells them what the field is for. Without it, your checkout form is a guessing game.<\/p>\n 5. Focus indicators<\/strong><\/p>\n When someone tabs through your site, is it obvious which element has focus? If your theme removes the default browser outline and does not replace it with a custom one, keyboard users cannot see where they are. Add a visible focus ring. It takes 5 minutes of CSS and it makes your site usable for thousands of people.<\/p>\n This is the step most people skip, and it is the one that reveals the biggest problems. Turn on VoiceOver (Mac) or NVDA (Windows) and navigate your site. Try to add a product to cart, fill in your address, and complete checkout.<\/p>\n You will quickly find out whether your heading structure makes sense, whether your buttons say what they do, and whether your images have useful descriptions. This is uncomfortable at first, and that is the point. It shows you what your customers experience.<\/p>\n Do not try to fix everything at once. Start with the changes that affect the most people and take the least time:<\/p>\n\n
Step 2: Check Your Top 5 Manual Issues<\/h2>\n
Step 3: Test With a Screen Reader<\/h2>\n
Step 4: Fix the Quick Wins First<\/h2>\n