Making E-Commerce Inclusive: Accessibility Compliance Boosts UX and Builds Trust
Discover how a leading e-commerce platform achieved WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) compliance, expanded market reach, and improved user experience for all customers, including those with disabilities. Learn about the strategic approach that transformed accessibility challenges into business opportunities.
The Client
A multinational apparel retailer.
The Challenge
A multinational clothing retailer faced critical challenges aligning their e-commerce platform with accessibility standards. The existing platform hindered product discovery, navigation, and checkout for users with disabilities, leading to poor user experience and missed business opportunities.
In brief, the company needed to:
- Attain compliance with WCAG levels A and AA
- Facilitate an inclusive user interface for customers with disabilities
- Rectify inefficient processes for addressing accessibility violations
- Reduce its risk of legal issues and reputational damage
- Prevent loss of revenue from users with visual, auditory, and cognitive impairments
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The Solution
Guided by a report from a neutral, professional third-party auditing firm engaged by GSPANN, our teams implemented a comprehensive accessibility strategy. This strategy featured a dedicated accessibility team, strategic fixes, technical solutions, multi-device optimization, knowledge transfer, proactive testing, and process improvements to enhance digital inclusivity and compliance.
Key features of our solution included:
- Establishing a Dedicated Accessibility Team: A specialized team was formed to validate and remediate accessibility findings identified in third-party audits.
- Strategic Approach: The team analyzed findings and suggested fixes at the page and component levels, minimizing impact on planned development activities.
- Technical Solutions: Our experts provided solutions for HTML structural issues and conducted POCs on third-party libraries to ensure accessibility compliance.
- Multi-device Optimization: Accessibility issues were fixed across multiple form factors, including mobile devices.
- Proactive Testing: Our team built a utility for in-sprint regression testing to identify and address accessibility issues before production deployment.
- Process Improvements: Recommendations were made to incorporate accessibility considerations during the UX design phase, assess third-party components, and integrate accessibility testing into the CI/CD pipeline.
By leveraging cutting-edge technologies and implementing a strategic approach to accessibility, GSPANN helped the company transform its digital presence into more inclusive, compliant, and user-friendly for all customers.
Business Impact
- WCAG Compliance: The e-commerce platform achieved WCAG compliance, mitigating potential legal risks.
- Expanded Market Reach: The inclusive design enabled users with disabilities to use the site effectively, potentially increasing revenue from this demographic.
- Enhanced Brand Reputation: Demonstrating commitment to inclusivity and ethical business practices improved customer loyalty and brand perception.
- Improved SEO: Accessibility best practices aligned with SEO best practices, potentially improving search engine rankings.
- Better User Experience: The improvements benefited all users, including those with slow internet connections or keyboard-only users.
- Measurable Progress: The Lighthouse accessibility score increased to 90 and above across all pages, providing a tangible success metric.
Technologies Used
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