eCommerce for All: Making the Online Experience More Accessible
In honor of National Disability Employment Awareness Month, we’re bringing a spotlight on the ways eCommerce can be made more accessible.
Many brands and retailers “miss out on millions of potential customers when they don’t design websites to be accessible to shoppers who use assistive technologies or rely on a keyboard to navigate online.” In fact, 15% of the world’s population experiences some form of disability. According to the Baymard Institute, 94% of the largest eCommerce sites can be challenging or even impossible to navigate for people with disabilities.
More and more people are choosing to shop online. With such a rapidly growing surge of online shoppers, there have been increased demands for brands and retailers to seriously invest into their e-commerce businesses. Such efforts include:
Diversifying your team
The first step toward accessibility, and perhaps the easiest solution “to making sure things actually work really well is [by] hiring a person with a disability.”
Providing visual alternatives
Descriptive alternative texting caters to users with disabilities, especially those with visual impairments. This feature provides accurate and descriptive alternative text for images, form fields, and page descriptions to be read aloud to the user.
Differentiating links from surrounding text and backgrounds
Links are crucial to navigating around a site. By providing descriptive titles and adequate contrast ratios for links, users with disabilities can better navigate the site.
Enhancing keyboard navigability
For users with mobility impairments who rely on a keyboard for site navigation, having all-site functionality operable on a keyboard can be a gamechanger.
At Emerging Blue, we are constantly striving to uphold our commitment to diversity, equality, and inclusion with all hiring and employment practices. Our goal is to both embody and coach our clients on creating inclusive environments in which all candidates and employees are treated with respect.
Read more about our DE&I commitment on our About page and on our Blog.