When it comes to e-commerce and accessibility, it all comes down to the ability for people to find and evaluate your products quickly and easily. This is true whether you have a few products that all appear on your homepage or if you have thousands of products that require an in-depth search.

For retailers who have much larger inventories, it becomes not only about the search but also about sorting the results. Put simply, your search function should be the first thing people see when they come to your site — that’s why they’re there after all. Additionally, with a large inventory, it’s helpful if the site can offer suggestions for more accurate searches; however, this only helps if the person with a disability can easily select the suggested alternatives. 

Walmart is a great example. After I enter a word or series of words, the site creates a list of suggestions and announces how many options there are in that list. I can then arrow up and down until I find the one that sounds like what I’m looking for. Then I select it by pressing the space bar and off I go.

A second and more important part of the search process is the relevance of results. The quality of the results is important as every new result takes time for someone to review. And for a blind person using a screen reader or screen magnification option means everything takes longer to begin with. 

Another helpful idea is to limit the number of search results per page. You should give users the option to change the number of results, make that button easy to find, and allow the user to set it as their default for future visits.

Most shoppers, regardless of whether or not they have a disability, only have so much time to invest in shopping for any item. The quicker I can find out if a product meets my needs or not, the happier I will be. 

I firmly believe that businesses can cut down on shopping cart abandonment if they make the process of searching for and evaluating products more streamlined. 

Another issue with e-commerce sites is color descriptions. Retailers can’t assume that a visitor with a vision impairment knows what a particular color name will mean or that they can guess. Even people with some vision may have to guess when looking at small thumbnail images of a product in various colors. 

This is an item that would work well with an accordion. I often have to ask a salesperson on the phone, send a message using social media, or ask Alex or Google what a certain color is. This takes more time for both me and their employees, which all takes away from the goal of making sales.   

Accessibility on Employment Sites

When it comes to job hunting sites, I have to admit, I don’t have a lot of experience. I worked for the IRS for a couple years in the 90s, I worked for a family carnival in 2007, and I’ve worked for myself since then. 

LinkedIn is my primary site for reviewing employment opportunities. They do a lot of things right as a large platform with millions of users. For example, when it comes to adding skills or preferred types of work, they use a great method for selecting items and moving them around in the section that avoids drag-and-drop or the need for a mouse. 

The process of applying for a job with a disability is so challenging that anything you can do to simplify the process will be very helpful. This is also helpful to those without a disability. However, job sites and job boards have to balance their desire to be helpful with their desire to make a profit. 

If your business is offering new job listings of any kind, please make sure it’s easy to navigate. I suggest using headings — especially within the email. I love when at least a few lines of text about the position, especially if it helps me avoid clicking through jobs I wouldn’t be a good fit for. And of course, making sure that all links work.

How to Make Travel Sites More Accessible

I don’t travel as much as many of my friends seem to think I do — my last trip was in June of 2023. I had so much trouble using airline sites to book my trip that I ended up using Expedia. I found the mobile version of their site very accessible at the time. This is a common challenge for using online sites with a disability. You never know if the desktop site or the mobile version will be accessible or which will be the most accessible.

Given that every travel site requires different information, I would encourage travel sites to eliminate clutter from the opening screen. Keep the sites simple. Be sure the method for selecting dates and times is simple and works well with screen readers and other adaptive technology. Make sure your accessibility statement is clear and easy to find. Consider creating files with information to help disabled visitors navigate the facility. Most physical facilities will have documents about restaurants and attractions but not how to get to the pool or fitness center. Or, more importantly, where to find the vending machines. 

If you have a team to handle questions concerning accessibility, make those people easy to find on the website or app.

Keep Accessibility Simple

My top advice for businesses would be simple design — focus on the main point, provide information in clear, easily understood terms, don’t make users trudge through a lot of other information to find the details we clicked on a page for, avoid unnecessary or untimely updates, and make sure your disabled customers can easily communicate with you to express issues or ask for help. 

When you make your site or mobile app more accessible, you will make it easier for everyone else to use it. People who enjoy the process and are frustrated less by the shopping experience will be more likely to come back. They will abandon carts at a much lower percentage. They will spend more time exploring items they may want or that they are curious about. And all this can lead to sales. Plus, a side bonus is accessible sites and apps means less work for your customer support and technology teams to do. 

Don’t forget the disability community in general, are loyal consumers who will advocate for engaged businesses or brands. There are over a billion people globally with a disability and over 60 to 75 million in the U.S. alone. Can any business really afford to ignore such a powerful consumer group? 

Start the process and make your site more accessible — it benefits all businesses, regardless of what type you operate.