ADA Compliance in E-commerce: The Practical Steps for Online Stores

Accessibility isn't a nice-to-have for e-commerce websites. It's the difference between a real shopper completing discovery, cart, and checkout – or hitting a blocker they can't get past.

It's also a legal and brand-risk consideration: the DOJ treats inaccessible web content as a barrier to equal access under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

In this guide, you'll map ADA expectations to a WCAG Level AA-oriented checklist for e-commerce sites, then learn how to test, prioritize, and ship fixes continuously – even when your online store changes weekly.

TL;DR:

• ADA compliance in e-commerce is about equal access to your shopping journey – not just a policy page.
• The DOJ doesn't mandate one universal web standard for every business, but points teams to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and Section 508 as helpful benchmarks.
• A clean automated report doesn't prove your site is accessible – pair automated tools with manual testing.
• Start with the money pages: category → product → cart → checkout, plus account and support.
• Treat website accessibility like uptime: ongoing compliance plus ongoing monitoring beats a one-off push.

What ADA compliance means for e-commerce

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a civil rights law focused on nondiscrimination and effective communication.

For the web, the DOJ's position is straightforward: the ADA applies to state and local governments (Title II) and businesses open to the public (Title III) – and that includes what you offer online.

For e-commerce teams, Title III is the headline. It requires public accommodations to provide full and equal enjoyment of goods and services, and to use appropriate communication aids when needed to effectively communicate.

One nuance that matters for website owners and web developers: the DOJ doesn't have one regulation that sets detailed, universal accessibility standards for every business. But it still expects your web content to be accessible – and it explicitly points to WCAG and Section 508 as helpful guidance.

Why web accessibility matters in shopping flows

E-commerce accessibility is practical for all users and businesses. Every shopper needs to be able to read what's on page, regardless of the light levels, and know where to navigate to make a purchase.

For some shoppers, there's also the need to be able to:

• Browse categories and filters with keyboard navigation
• Compare variants and product images with text alternatives
• Complete forms without getting stuck on unlabeled fields or silent error messages
• Understand pricing, delivery, and returns in a way that works with assistive technologies

People with disabilities navigate e-commerce sites in different ways: screen reader users rely on spoken output, some shoppers need captions, and others use voice recognition instead of a mouse. If your e-commerce store assumes that all your users will navigate using a mouse and have perfect vision and hearing, you'll create accessibility barriers – and lose customers.

This isn't only risk management. When your site's accessibility improves, you reach a broader audience, reduce friction for every shopper, and lift customer satisfaction through clearer UX and fewer dead ends.

Pick your benchmark: WCAG Level AA

If you're trying to ensure ****ADA compliance for e-commerce websites, you need a benchmark your team can build and test against.

In practice, WCAG standards at Level AA are the most common target because they're specific enough to be actionable (design, content, engineering, QA) without being unrealistic for real-world e-commerce sites.

WCAG is published by the World Wide Web Consortium through the Web Accessibility Initiative – which matters because it signals mature, widely adopted web accessibility guidance for evolving standards across platforms.

There's also an important signal from the DOJ's newer web accessibility work for Title II: for state and local governments, WCAG 2.1 Level AA is the technical standard referenced for web content and mobile apps.

Even if your e-commerce site is Title III, using WCAG Level AA as your internal "definition of done" helps you:

• Set clear legal requirements
• Align expectations without guessing
• Run a repeatable accessibility audit
• Make your "site compliant" goal measurable across templates, components, and flows

Common accessibility barriers on e-commerce sites

The DOJ's examples of inaccessible web content map perfectly onto typical e-commerce journeys. Here's what those accessibility barriers look like on e-commerce websites:

• Poor color contrast – Sale badges, low-contrast body text, disabled button states shoppers can't read.
• Color alone used to convey meaning – "Required" fields shown only in red, "in stock" vs. "out of stock" shown only by color.
• Missing alt text – Product galleries and thumbnails without meaningful alt text or other text alternatives.
• No captions on video content – Product demos and UGC without captions.
• Inaccessible online forms – Checkout fields without labels, unclear instructions, or error indicators that aren't announced to screen readers.
• Mouse-only navigation – Filters, carousels, drawers, and checkout steps that can't be completed by keyboard alone.

If you want one takeaway, it's that ADA-compliant e-commerce fails most often in interactive UI – filters, modals, forms – not static content.

A practical WCAG checklist for e-commerce stores

If you're working across multiple storefronts, locales, and third-party scripts on your e-commerce platform, don't start with a 200-point spreadsheet.

Start with the journeys that drive revenue and support:

• Home page – Global nav, promos, search
• Category / collection – filters, sorting, pagination/infinite scroll
• Product detail page – gallery, variants, reviews, delivery info
• Cart – quantity steppers, promo codes, validation
• Checkout – address, shipping, payment, confirmation
• Account – login, order history, returns, invoices
• Customer support – contact forms, chat entry points, FAQs

That "account" area matters more than people think. It's often where customers download invoices, update billing details, and pull records for filing tax documents – and it's a common source of hidden accessibility problems.

Use the POUR model (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust) to keep it structured.

Perceivable

Make sure shoppers can perceive your web page content, including product images and media:

Alt text strategy for product images

• Use short, specific alt text that communicates purpose, not "image123.jpg"
• For decorative images (e.g., background flourishes), use empty alt text so screen readers skip them
• For product galleries: ensure the selected image has a clear accessible name, not "thumbnail 4"
• Add detailed descriptions when an image carries critical info, e.g., size charts, ingredient callouts

Captions and transcripts for video content

• Add accurate, synchronized captions for product videos
• Provide transcripts when the video includes key info not present elsewhere (specs, instructions)

Contrast and not using color alone

• Verify text contrast on buttons, price blocks, and error states
• Add text cues (e.g., "Required") instead of relying on red outlines alone

Operable

Make sure your e-commerce site works without a mouse:

Keyboard-only navigation for the full shopping flow

• Can shoppers open menus, use search suggestions, set filters, choose variants, add to cart, and complete checkout by keyboard alone?
• Watch for focus traps in drawers, modals, cookie banners, and payment iframes

Visible focus states

• Ensure focus is always visible (especially on dark headers, promo carousels, and filter chips)

No mouse-only widgets

• On carousels, allow keyboard control and provide clear pause/stop behavior
• For range sliders and star ratings, provide accessible alternatives or inputs

Understandable

Make checkout predictable and fixable:

Clear labels and instructions in forms

• Every input needs a label that screen readers can announce, including shipping, billing, and payment
• Don't rely on placeholder text as the label.

Error handling that actually helps

• On submit, announce errors, identify the field, and explain how to fix it
• Don't clear the form after an error. Don't move focus randomly

Predictable navigation

• Keep heading structure consistent so screen reader users can jump through sections

Robust

Make your site compatible with assistive tech now and later:

Semantic HTML first

• Use real buttons for actions, real links for navigation, and correct input types for mobile keyboards

ARIA only when needed

• If you add ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications – a set of HTML roles, states, and properties that add semantic meaning to web elements) – keep it accurate, as wrong ARIA is worse than none

Test with assistive technologies

• "It works on my machine" doesn't count if it fails for screen readers, keyboard users, or high zoom

How to test your store for accessibility issues

A layered testing plan helps you catch real accessibility issues without slowing releases to a crawl.

Use three layers:

• Automated tools for breadth – fast signal across templates and pages
• Manual testing for real UX – keyboard pass + form flows + modals
• Assistive-technology spot checks – a quick screen reader smoke test on critical paths

The DOJ's guidance is explicit here: automated accessibility checkers and overlays can help, but they must be used carefully – and a clean report doesn't prove everything is accessible. Pair automated checks with manual checks for a better picture.

A mini test script to run this every release

Keyboard pass (10 minutes)

• Start at the homepage
• Reach a product via category + filter
• Add to cart
• Complete checkout to the last step you can test safely
• Confirm focus is visible and you never get stuck

Screen reader smoke test (15 minutes)

• Check headings on category and product pages
• Confirm the product title, price, and variant selection are announced clearly
• Trigger an error in checkout and confirm the message is announced

Form error states (10 minutes)

• Leave required fields empty
• Enter an invalid email/postcode format
• Confirm the error tells you what's wrong and how to fix it

Mobile touch targets + zoom (10 minutes)

• Increase zoom and confirm nothing becomes unusable (filters, modals, cart)
• Check that small controls (steppers, close buttons) are still operable

Add an accessibility statement and a real problem reporting path

In the first half of 2025, ADA-related lawsuits brought against businesses due to website accessibility issues, were up 37% on the same period in 2024.

When a shopper hits an inaccessible website, can't check out, and has no clear way to ask for help, they won't necessarily bring legal action, but it's a risk.

Two practical additions reduce risk and improve outcomes for site visitors:

• Accessibility statement – Explain your standard (e.g., WCAG 2.1 AA), what you're doing to achieve ADA compliance, and how you handle requests.
• Appropriate communication aids – Provide communication aids and a contact path that actually works for people using assistive technologies (not a CAPTCHA-locked form).

This is also aligned with DOJ guidance: providing a way to report accessibility problems helps website owners identify and remove barriers.

Don't treat compliance as a one-off project

E-commerce sites change constantly: campaigns, new landing pages, third-party scripts, theme updates, A/B tests, personalization, and localization waves.

That's why maintaining ADA compliance needs an operating model, not a one-time accessibility audit.

This matters even more for leading brands in the e-commerce sector with multi-team, multi-market complexity – think WebOps, digital governance, and enterprise CMS migrations. When dozens of teams can ship UI, non-compliance tends to creep in through regressions.

Here's a model that works:

• Design system rules – Accessible components by default, such as inputs, modals, and navigation
• PR acceptance criteria – Accessibility checks included in code review
• Audit cadence – Match your release velocity (weekly, biweekly, or monthly)
• Triage process – Rank severity based on user impact and journey criticality, e.g., checkout bugs outrank footer issues
• Regression monitoring – Keep scanning your templates so issues don't creep back in

Taking the right steps is what keeps your site fully accessible, not just letting you run one-off projects.

Tools to avoid for ADA compliance on e-commerce websites

Two common traps slow teams down and create false confidence:

Instant compliance promises

• If a tool claims it can make your e-commerce site ADA compliant instantly, be skeptical.
• Overlays and automated fixes can help highlight problems, but they need to be used carefully – and they don't replace manual checks.

Treating an automated report as proof

• A clean scan is not the same as an accessible experience – automated tools don't pick up everything.
• Automated tools miss UX issues like confusing focus order, unusable keyboard patterns, and broken checkout error recovery.

What to do instead:

• Use automated tools as a net
• Use manual and assistive-tech testing as the proof
• Track issues like product bugs: severity, ownership, and verification

Turn findings into fixes your team will ship

Accessibility work fails when it turns into vague tickets like "Improve accessibility." Web developers can't ship that.

Instead, report accessibility problems with the same discipline you use for revenue-impacting bugs – especially when the issue blocks screen reader users or creates inaccessible features in checkout.

Here's a bug template your team can copy:

• Title: Checkout – credit card field has no label for screen readers
• URL: [exact page]
• Steps to reproduce: (include keyboard steps)
• Expected behavior: label announced, error announced, or focus moves predictably
• Actual behavior: screen reader doesn't announce field purpose; error isn't announced
• Assistive technologies used: screen reader, browser, and OS
• Impact: blocks screen reader users from completing forms. – severity: critical
• Evidence: screenshot, DOM snippet, and console logs

Tools like Marker.io are useful as the extra layer that makes it easy to track, report, and triage website issues: capture website feedback with screenshots, annotations, and technical metadata, then send it to your product management tool, like Jira, Trello, Asana, or GitHub.

Conclusion

ADA compliance means making sure people with disabilities can browse, compare, and buy from your site with the same independence as everyone else.

For e-commerce websites, the practical path is clear: remove accessibility barriers like missing alt text, unsupported captions, inaccessible forms, and no keyboard-only access. Next, test with a mix of automated tools and manual testing, and then provide a way for site visitors to report accessibility problems.