Many ecommerce websites struggle to provide an accessible shopping experience for people with disabilities. This means they miss out on a significant number of their potential customers.
Magento accessibility is an essential concern for Magento store owners, as not making their ecommerce site accessible can lead to lost sales, damage to their brand, and even legal issues. Online stores need to ensure that their platforms are easy to navigate for everyone, including those with visual, auditory, or motor impairments.
Studies show that 98% of websites have accessibility problems for people with disabilities. As a result, ecommerce websites make up 82% of all website types regularly facing costly digital accessibility lawsuits. With this in mind, achieving and maintaining Magento accessibility is more important than ever.
In this article, we will discuss how to improve your Magento store’s accessibility, avoid legal risks, and ensure a better user experience for all customers.
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What is Magento Accessibility Compliance?
Incorporating ADA-compliant features into your Magento ecommerce store helps you reach a larger audience. It also ensures that people with disabilities can easily use your site. Magento encourages store owners to make their websites ADA-compliant. It provides clear guidelines to help achieve this and they are given below.
Visual Guidelines
- Ensure good contrast and avoid using all capital letters.
- Use appropriate font sizes and maintain a clear reading order.
- Make links easily identifiable from other text.
- Avoid content that could cause seizures.
- Add a “skip to main content” link for keyboard users.
Content and User Experience
- Provide accessible content with descriptive labels.
- Ensure digital content is predictable and easy to navigate.
- Videos and audio should have play and pause buttons.
- Links should be clear and understandable with appropriate anchor text.
Development Guidelines
- Make your website accessible for keyboard users.
- Use real text for faster loading and easier translation.
Klizer is one of the best Magento accessibility solutions providers that can help you with this.
Get in touch with the best Magento accessibility solution partners.
How to Ensure ADA Compliance for Magento eCommerce Stores?
Improving your ecommerce website’s accessibility is an ongoing process that can be achieved in several ways. The most well-known guidelines for Magento website accessibility are the WCAG. These guidelines state that websites should be:
- Perceivable: All visitors should be able to access the website’s elements, no matter their disability.
- Operable: Every element of the website’s interface and navigation should be easy to use.
- Understandable: The website should be easy to understand for all users.
- Robust: The website should work well with various assistive technologies.
Magento ADA Compliance: Key Requirements
Here are the key legal requirements for Magento ADA compliance:
| Requirements | Explanation |
| Accessible Website Structure | Use clear HTML elements to create an easy-to-understand structure. Make sure headings are in the right order for screen readers. |
| Focus and Navigation | Organize navigation in a logical and consistent way. Make it easy for users to identify and navigate through clickable elements. |
| Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) | Use ARIA attributes to improve accessibility for dynamic content and interactive elements. |
| Keyboard Accessibility | Ensure all features of the website can be used with just a keyboard. |
| Alternative Text | Add alt text for images and provide text descriptions for video content and other media. |
| Form Accessibility | Use clear labels for form fields and link error messages to the correct fields. |
| Contrast and Color | Ensure sufficient color contrast between text and background to make content easy to read. |
| Responsive and Accessible Design | Design the website to work well on different devices and screen sizes. This makes your website equally accessible. |
What Are the Benefits of Making Your Magento Store ADA Compliant?
1. ADA compliance offers SEO benefits
Websites that aren’t ADA-compliant may exclude users with disabilities, which affects user experience and search engine rankings. Websites that are ADA-compliant tend to rank higher in search engines like Google, Safari, and Microsoft Bing.
Solution: Add alt text to images, transcripts for videos and audio, and optimize your content to improve user experience and boost your search engine ranking.
2. It helps improve brand perception
Many Magento websites lack ADA compliance, which limits accessibility for users with disabilities. This can harm your brand’s reputation and reduce its appeal to a wider audience.
Solution: ADA compliance makes your website more appealing to a broader audience. Making your Magento site accessible can increase your brand’s reputation and help it stand out.
3. It helps you avoid lawsuits
Many ecommerce websites face legal action due to ADA non-compliance. Around 82% of the top 500 ecommerce brands have been targeted by lawsuits.
Solution: Make your site accessible to avoid legal risks.
4. You get more traffic
About 1 billion people, or 15% of the world’s population, live with disabilities. By making your website accessible, you open your ecommerce store to a large group of potential customers. When people know your site is ADA-compliant, they’ll tell others, bringing even more traffic to your store.
5. ADA compliance helps improve conversion rates
When disabled users have equal access to your store, it increases the chances of making a sale. Many customers with disabilities are loyal to businesses that make an effort to improve their experience. ADA compliance can increase your conversion rates by up to 20%.
Strategies To Get Magento Accessibility Compliance
Perform a Regular Compliance Audit
ADA and other accessibility standards can be complicated and require thorough testing. Consult with Magento accessibility compliance experts, like Klizer, and request an accessibility compliance report to ensure your Magento website meets all necessary web accessibility requirements.
Openly Welcome Web Accessibility Feedback
Create a feedback form on your Magento store for users to report accessibility issues. This free user testing can help you identify problem areas. If you don’t have the budget for full QA services, consider setting up a bug bounty program.
Stay Updated on Changes to Guidelines and Laws
WCAG 2.2 is the latest accessibility standard, and the ADA.gov website was last updated in March 2022. As technology advances, new standards and guidelines will emerge. Stay on top of these updates to ensure your site remains compliant and reduce the risk of legal issues.
Legal Requirements of Magento Accessibility Plugin – WCAG and ADA
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the global standards for making websites and apps accessible to people with disabilities. These guidelines offer clear instructions on how website owners can ensure their platforms are usable for everyone, no matter their disability. It is important to make sure that people with disabilities aren’t left out of the digital world.
43 million people are living with blindness, which is about 0.5% of the global population, highlighting the need for accessible online platforms.
WCAG is part of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It was created to remove barriers for people with disabilities when using websites and mobile apps. Today, these digital platforms are essential in our daily lives.
According to Title 3 of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), businesses must make changes to accommodate people with disabilities. Even though websites weren’t originally mentioned in the ADA, recent court rulings have made it clear that they should be included.
In fact, web accessibility lawsuits have been on the rise, with over 4,600 website accessibility cases filed in 2023 alone. This shows the growing importance of making websites accessible.
Recommended Read: Why is ADA Compliance Testing Important for eCommerce Websites?
Enhance Magento Accessibility to Expand Your Store’s Reach with Klizer
Your Magento store is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities, you can increase your customer base, mitigate legal risks, improve search engine rankings, and boost conversion rates. An accessible Magento website helps your business grow by enhancing user experience and expanding your reach to a broader audience.
Magento accessibility expert agencies like Klizer can help you make your store accessible to everyone. Their team provides Magento accessibility solutions that can help you expand your store’s reach.
If you need further information, contact us today!
