Ever since the web laws have become compulsory for every website/store, there is a chaos among website owners to make their stores/websites fully legal. All the websites, running on Shopify or any other platform, must be accessible now for end-users. Here we will discuss about Shopify website accessibility. Though transforming your Shopify store for ADA compliance is easy, yet it requires minute detailing.
Have you made your Shopify store ADA compliant or yet to begin?
If you are still in the process to optimize your store as per ADA guidelines, then read this article to know how easily you can make your store accessible to everyone.
Since the pandemic hit the world, Ecommerce is on a boom, and the marketing trends have changed. If your website is not accessible, you are going to lose significant numbers (in terms of money and customers). Furthermore, the US government is taking strict actions against in-accessible digital products. If your Shopify store is a digital space that serves directly to the public, then it must be compatible with ADA accessibility guidelines.
Here are a few tips to make your Shopify website ADA compliant.
How to convert your Shopify store to be ADA compliant?
ADA compliance for Shopify stores is crucial to becoming a legitimate business. You know what ADA is, but do you know how to make your store ADA compliant? ADA (Americans with disabilities act) focuses on the complete accessibility of your Shopify (or other) digital space to everyone. The laws have become strict to their superlative degree. You just cannot evade the situation by giving some random excuse.
Review the WCAG and ADA guidelines thoroughly
To make your store accessible, it must be compatible with all the guidelines given by W3C for web accessibility. Fulfil the ADA compliance requirements by applying WCAG compliance standards for people with disabilities. Adherence to these guidelines, make your Shopify store perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.
Regular audit of the Shopify store is needed
Before you start the actual process of making your website accessible, you ought to audit the Shopify store using accessibility tools such as the Accessibility developer tool, Color contrast analyzer, etc. These ADA WCAG testing guidelines help in finding the missing parts and the errors on the website, for example, missing alt tags, links, buttons, headings, etc. Using the information, you can start solving the issues and making your Shopify website accessible.
Even if the website is completed for accessibility, you should audit and maintain the store regularly for its consistent performance.
Make visual changes to the Shopify store for accessibility
Visual accessibility is important to look over and work on to provide an accessible experience to visually impaired people or people who have severe learning disabilities. To ensure the Shopify store’s accessibility, you must change the color contrast, provide the correct font size, text spacing should be proper, and remove unwanted pop-ups. Moreover, your Shopify store ought to be compatible with all the screen readers.
Consider hearing issues of some users
Some users have difficulty hearing audio content. Thus, make sure every audio content has understandable/readable writing transcripts.
Apply Shopify web accessibility guidelines
To make your Shopify store accessible, you must adhere to web design accessibility best practices. Make sure you follow each guideline and make the content easily readable and understandable. Headings and subheadings make the content readily comprehensible. All the images must have alt text, so that screen readers can understand them.
Furthermore, check every video's accessibility; they should have captions for people who rely on them (captions) to understand the video content. Include all such guidelines in your Shopify store for better accessibility.
Focus on navigation problems
Along with content accessibility, the store’s easy navigation is also important. You must consider keyboard navigation for each page of your Shopify store. A user with some sort of motor issue or any other problem should be able to navigate from one page to another only using the keyboard to access the content completely.
Use Shopify accessibility plugins or tools
If you wish to make your Shopify store ADA compliant but you do not want to spend time learning guidelines and applying them to the store, then you have a few tools and integrations to make your Shopify store compliant without putting too much effort. Shopify offers tools like Accessibility Toolkit, Accessibly Enabler, Accessibly app, etc. Your web development team can help you with the tools and their usage.
But do not rely on the tools entirely because they are not able to cover all the aspects of accessibility. They help to make content easier to read, enable text to voice, make hyperlinks more noticeable, add alt tags automatically, and adjust the color of the content. Manual testing from designer or developer team is necessary after integrated this successfully.
Take end-user feedback
Keep on taking end-users feedback to know about the user experience. The feedback can help you to know the actual issues and then you can resolve them. The end-users feedback genuinely assists you to understand the real problems and aid to evade the legal issues as well.
Check all the facets of your Shopify store to make it accessible. Design (text color, size, space, etc.), content (headings, subheadings, alt tags, the caption for video/audio content, etc.), and development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript codes) all require equal weightage to look over and pay attention to.
Why is it necessary to make your Shopify store ADA compliance?
Making your Shopify store accessible is not only to escape the lawsuits, but as an online store owner, there are a few benefits for your business as well.
Avoid ADA lawsuits
Apparently, you evade all the legal issues by complying with the suggested guidelines. Many big names of different industries have faced legal issues due to inaccessible web stores and ended up by paying a huge amount as a fine. You can dodge such a mess with a compliant Shopify store.
Improved user experience
ADA compliant Shopify store will be accessible to all users with or without any disability. They will be able to access every information given on your page with ease, which will surely improve the user experience of your store with increased conversion as well.
An increased user-base
When you have an ADA compliant Shopify store, it reaches a wider segment of users, which eventually increases your profits.
ADA compliant Shopify store is a current necessity!
A responsible business knows its liability and hence provides an accessible digital space to everyone. According to facts, around 61 million people have some sort of disability in the US. You can imagine the number of people who face issues while accessing an online store. This is why the US has made the ADA law compulsory for every online store. Making your Shopify store accessible is not burdensome. It only requires a little effort and careful vigilance.
Skynet Technologies has ample experience in delivering secure, reliable, and power-packed Shopify development services to clients across diverse industry segments. Whether you are looking for Shopify development, Shopify store ADA accessibility, Shopify UI/UX design, Shopify migration, version upgrades, integration, redesign, Shopify maintenance or support, you are at the right place! Get in touch with us at [email protected] or submit the following request free quote form.
