ADA Compliance Guide for eCommerce

We’ve talked about web accessibility before in our blog: we’ve talked about how it can help you boost sales by preventing shopping cart abandonment, and even the tax benefits of web accessibility. Accessibility in online stores isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s crucial to stay inclusive, prevent friction, serve larger markets, boost SEO, and avoid legal issues. But what does ADA Compliance for eCommerce mean?

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was created in 1990 to prevent and prohibit discrimination based on disability. It has already expanded to the digital world to make it a more inclusive space, meaning all websites should make it a priority to be accessible to everyone.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through what ADA compliance means for eCommerce, what areas to focus on, and how some solutions like accessiBe can help make it easier.

What is ADA Compliance in eCommerce?

ADA compliance for websites means ensuring your digital content, navigation, design, and site functionalities are usable by people with a wide range of disabilities, which includes visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive impairments.

Nowadays, to be ADA-compliant, your eCommerce website should at least meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA standards. Although certain aspects of it are constantly evolving (meaning you should definitely revisit the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines often), here are some of the most important and basic guidelines to follow.

Key ADA Accessibility Features for eCommerce Sites

1. Keyboard navigation: Ensure all items (navigation menus, product listings, and forms) can be accessed and navigated through without a mouse.
   
2. Alt Text for images: Use descriptive alternative text for product images so screen readers can access all the information that the images showcase.
   
3. Color contrast and text size: Ensure adequate color contrast between text and backgrounds, and allow users to adjust text size easily. You can use certain tools to check if your contrast is sufficient.
   
4. Accessible Forms: Describe and label form elements clearly and make sure error messages are easy to understand.
   
5. Captions and transcripts: Provide correct captions for videos and transcripts for audio content.

How accessiBe can help

Unless you have a dedicated accessibility team, achieving full ADA compliance can be a complex task. Fortunately, certain companies provide web accessibility services. Enter our Partner, accessiBe.

AccessiBe is an AI-powered accessibility solution that automates the process of making your website compliant with ADA and WCAG standards. Through services such as AI scanning and remediation, real-time accessibility improvements, daily monitoring, homepage and navigation adjustments, and more, accessiBe can help you take action about web accessibility in a simple, effective, and practical way, reducing the time and costs of manual accessibility fixes.

Of course, ADA compliance isn’t just about following the law but also about creating an inclusive, pleasant experience for everyone who’s navigating the web. In eCommerce, user experience will always be a top priority, and accessibility is just another aspect of it. By leveraging automation tools and solutions like accessiBe, web accessibility can be simple.

You can check if your site is currently ADA compliant by using accessiBe’s free scanning tool featured on our website. For any website adjustments or to start using accessiBe for your NetSuite eCommerce website, contact our team today!

Also, you can join our upcoming Q&A about Web accessibility featuring accessiBe on Thursday, 24th of April, and ask away all your doubts! Register here.