Improve Website Accessibility in eCommerce

Make your eCommerce store more accessible to unlock a wider customer base and boost user experience! This guide dives into accessibility best practices specifically designed to improve website accessibility. Whether building a new website using AI or refining an existing one, these actionable tips will ensure your eCommerce caters to everyone, regardless of ability.

In this article, we will discuss: 

Improve Website Accessibility

To boost your website’s accessibility, you must keep it up-to-date and ensure that its content is clear and visually compelling. You can incorporate the following practices when creating a new website or making edits to an existing one.

Add Alt Text

Alt Text is a short-written description of an image that will display a message for users who use a screen reader or cannot see the photos on your site. Having a descriptive Alt-text for each image on your website will help users understand your website's images.

Once you have added a photo in your site editor, you can add Alt Text by clicking on the Advanced options and selecting Alt Text.

Use Contrasting Colors

Choosing your theme colors, customizing your text or buttons, and using high contrasting colors are vital for people with color blindness and other visual impairments. We recommend using a single color for body text on a different colored background.

Please Note: Our intelligent editor will automatically adjust the color of your text or background if there isn't enough contrast between the two to be readable.

Pay Attention to Font Size and Text Treatments

You can format your text to make reading comfortable for your site visitors with dyslexia or low vision.

Pro Tip: Use common sans serif fonts with extra paragraph spacing and refrain from paragraphs with all capital letters or excessive use of italics and underlines.

Reduce Automated Motion

Decreasing the motion from elements on your website will create more accessibility for your site visitors with cognitive issues like ADHD, epilepsy, or motion sickness.

Pro Tip: Start by turning off animations, avoiding or limiting the use of auto-play on videos, and using parallax scrolling sparingly.

Enable the Sitemap in the footer

An enabled footer Sitemap that displays as a link at the bottom of your website will help screen readers read your site's hierarchy. It allows your site visitors to access different pages and navigate your created content in various ways.

You can locate a link to your Sitemap by clicking on settings. Selecting Search Engines, and then Sitemap.xml. Copy the link and use text features from the build menu to customize your site footer.

Use Nested Headings for Text

The title, subtitle, and description for most sections coded to a preset hierarchy are provided to your website. This will give screen readers a path to follow and show them your website's structure.

Pro Tip: Organizing text from Titles, Subtitles, and Descriptions will break up the areas and add visual interest to your website content.

Add Descriptions to Videos and Images

Adding captions on images and videos is another way to convey what is happening within the media for the visually impaired or screen readers.

Use Text Treatments to Highlight Important Information

Using a combination of text sizes, thoughtfully underlining, bolding, or italicizing text will emphasize content to readers. Instead of using multiple colors within the text that could be missed by visitors with color blindness or visual impairments, these steps will help your site become more accessible.

Review

By implementing these accessibility practices, you can unlock a wider customer base for your eCommerce. Not only will your website be inclusive for people with disabilities, but it will also improve user experience for everyone, potentially leading to increased sales and brand loyalty. Take the first step towards a more accessible website today – review your existing content and consider incorporating these accessibility best practices during your next website update.