BigCommerce Accessibility and ADA Compliance
By proactively managing your BigCommerce Web Accessibility, you make your business more accessible to all, optimize your site for search engines, and reduce your legal risk. Our team of experts is ready to help.
- Follow WCAG 2.1 Compliance Guidelines
- Improve Experience for All Users
- Improve Search Engine Rankings
- Reach More Customers (1 in 4 U.S. adults may not be able to use your site)
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What is Web Accessibility?
Put simply, “Web Accessibility” is an umbrella term that encompasses every aspect of how usable or accessible websites, tools, and other technologies are for those living with disabilities. This covers everything from color contrast on a webpage to how a user navigates the website’s interface, and many areas in between.
This is why guidelines are put in place to accommodate users with a wide range of disabilities including, but not limited to the following:
- Blindness/Low Vision
- Deafness/Hearing Loss
- Limited Movement
- Speech Disabilities
- Photosensitivity
- Learning/Cognitive Limitations
BigCommerce ADA Compliance and
Accessibility: Essential Elements
Key areas of ecommerce web accessibility focus on making content usable, navigable, and understandable, regardless of how someone interacts with your site. Here are the most common elements to consider:
Descriptive Text Alternatives
Provide short and descriptive text alternatives for any non-text content: images, videos, buttons, form fields, iframes, and more.
Readable Text
Text is readable and descriptive. Clear page headings and titles. Adequate font size and spacing between letters and words.
Distinguishable Contrast
Help users, such as those with low vision or colorblindness, clearly see content and elements by using proper color contrast.
Video & Audio
Users can play, pause, stop, or mute video and audio with timeline controls. Captions and transcripts for videos. No auto-play video or audio.
Keyboard
Accessibility
Users can navigate and all functionality is available using the keyboard: form fields, buttons, navigation links, and more.
Zoomable Content
Pages provide high-quality, zoomable images. Text and layout is zoomable, usable, and responsive on smaller screen widths.
Why BigCommerce ADA Compliance Matters
More than 1 in 4 adults in the United States live with a disability, making the need for inclusive web design and development greater than ever. WCAG 2.1 is the standardized set of guidelines that outlines accessibility criteria for web content, and what we follow to improve our clients' BigCommerce stores.
Proactive management makes your business more accessible to all, optimizes your site for search engines, and reduces your legal risk. Here's why it matters:
- Improvements for disabled users improves site for ALL users
- Improvements for machine reading technology (i.e. search engines)
- Allows new users to experience your site
- Meets Google’s requirements and makes them happy
- Mitigates risk of lawsuits
BigCommerce Web Accessibility Process
Our experienced team of developers is equipped with the tools and methodologies needed to analyze and implement web accessibility best practices. To ensure the success of your accessibility efforts, our process encompasses the following steps:
Audit Web Accessibility
Our team will carefully analyze your site to assess its current level of accessibility in accordance with WCAG 2.1 guidelines.
Provide
Reporting
We provide comprehensive reports detailing the issues that are preventing your site from being accessible.
Remediate Accessibility Issues
Our experienced certified BigCommerce developers will implement solutions to help your site meet WCAG 2.1 standards.
Record
& Repeat
We repeat this process monthly and keep a record of every report, proving your commitment to making your site accessible.
Is Your Business At Risk?
Every year, an increasing number of lawsuits are filed against websites that fail to meet ADA and WCAG specifications. Many of them had no idea they were at risk. To proactively prevent legal troubles, site owners must understand the impact that accessibility has on disabled users and the legal implications that arise from poor practice.
WCAG 2.1
WCAG stands for 'Web Content Accessibility Guidelines'. While not a law, many governments have adopted it for their accessibility regulations.
ADA: Title III
An online store can be a public place of accommodation and must be equally accessible to customers with disabilities.
Section 508
Requires that any technology that’s used by a federal agency or department has to be accessible to people with disabilities.
Years of Partnership
Years of Experience
Team Members
BigDev Certified Developers
Projects Done
BigCommerce Accessibility and
ADA Compliance FAQs
WCAG stands for ‘Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.’ The WCAG guidelines are a set of recommended actions rather than enforceable legislation; they form the backbone of many online accessibility laws around the world and they offer a strong model for any American organization striving to provide equal access for all users.
In addition to preventing costly litigation, being accessible makes it easier to sell more goods and services and reach new markets. Having accessible technology will elevate your brand value in the minds of users and rank your site higher from an SEO perspective.
In a number of cases, it was ruled that simply installing an app is too passive of an approach. Businesses named in lawsuits must demonstrate their commitment to web accessibility by outlining the steps they are taking to ensure its continuous improvement. This can mean that the source code of the website should be improved.
Similar to installing an app, a one-time fix does not exist when it comes to web accessibility. Since content and standards are constantly evolving, a site that’s deemed accessible one week may be non-compliant the next. By taking a proactively managed approach, businesses can prevent issues before they arise and avoid “reactive” solutions, which are much more costly.
We work with businesses ranging from small “mom-and-pop” shops, to medium-sized sites, to fortune 100 companies.
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Our experts are ready to field your questions, learn more about your business, and find a solution that’s right for you. Contact us now to get started!
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- Certified Elite BigCommerce Partner since 2012
- We Work Exclusively on BigCommerce
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