The ADA Compliance Checklist for Ecommerce Sites

8,800 ADA lawsuits were filed in 2024. 82% targeted ecommerce sites. Most of the companies sued were small to mid-sized — Shopify stores, direct-to-consumer brands, online retailers.

The lawsuits cite WCAG 2.1 — the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines published by the W3C. Level AA compliance is the standard courts use. Reaching AA doesn't require a complete rebuild. It requires auditing what you have and fixing the gaps.

This checklist covers the criteria most commonly cited in ecommerce lawsuits. Work through it section by section. For a faster starting point, run your site through ada-scanner.com first — it will flag the most common failures automatically.

Images and Media

This is the most frequently cited category in ecommerce ADA lawsuits. Product images without alt text are a common failure.

1. 1.Every product image has descriptive alt text. Not the filename. Not "product image." Something that describes what a person would see: "Blue ceramic mug, 12oz, matte finish." (WCAG 1.1.1)
2. 2.Decorative images — backgrounds, dividers, purely visual elements — have empty alt attributes (alt=""). Screen readers skip these entirely. (WCAG 1.1.1)
3. 3.If you use images of text in banners or promotional graphics, the same text appears somewhere in the HTML. (WCAG 1.4.5)
4. 4.Videos on product pages have accurate captions. Auto-generated captions from video platforms don't meet the standard — they need review and correction. (WCAG 1.2.2)
5. 5.If you have audio content, a text transcript is available. (WCAG 1.2.1)

Navigation and Page Structure

Screen reader users navigate by headings and landmarks. If your heading structure is broken, they can't find what they're looking for.

6. 6.Each page has exactly one H1 that describes the page content. Multiple H1s or a missing H1 is a common ecommerce theme issue. (WCAG 1.3.1)
7. 7.Headings follow a logical order — H1 → H2 → H3. Skipping heading levels breaks the document outline. (WCAG 1.3.1)
8. 8.A "skip to main content" link appears as the first interactive element on each page. Keyboard and screen reader users depend on this to bypass navigation. (WCAG 2.4.1)
9. 9.Every interactive element — links, buttons, form fields, menus — is reachable and activatable using only the Tab and Enter keys. (WCAG 2.1.1)
10. 10.The focused element is visually distinct. Many Shopify themes remove the browser's default focus outline for aesthetic reasons. This is a WCAG failure. Restore it. (WCAG 2.4.7)
11. 11.Navigation is consistent across pages. Menu order, structure, and placement don't change unexpectedly. (WCAG 3.2.3)

Forms and Checkout

Checkout is where most ecommerce accessibility failures show up in lawsuits. A form that a screen reader user can't complete is discrimination under ADA.

12. 12.Every form input has a visible, associated label element. Placeholder text is not a label. It disappears when someone starts typing. (WCAG 1.3.1, 3.3.2)
13. 13.Error messages identify the specific field that has the problem and explain what to fix. "Something went wrong" is not an accessible error message. (WCAG 3.3.1)
14. 14.Required fields are marked with more than just a red border or color change. An asterisk with an explanation, or "(required)" in the label. (WCAG 1.4.1)
15. 15.The entire checkout flow works with keyboard navigation only. Tab through every step and confirm nothing requires a mouse. (WCAG 2.1.1)
16. 16.If your checkout has session timeouts, users receive an advance warning and can extend the session. (WCAG 2.2.1)

Color and Contrast

Low contrast is one of the easiest failures to catch and fix. Run your brand colors through a contrast checker before anything else.

17. 17.Normal body text — under 18pt — has at least a 4.5:1 contrast ratio against its background. This is the AA standard. (WCAG 1.4.3)
18. 18.Large text — 18pt or larger, or 14pt bold — needs at least 3:1 contrast. Price text and sale callouts often fail this. (WCAG 1.4.3)
19. 19.UI components — button borders, input outlines, checkboxes — have at least 3:1 contrast against adjacent backgrounds. (WCAG 1.4.11)
20. 20.Information is not conveyed by color alone. "Items in red are out of stock" fails this. Use an icon, label, or pattern alongside the color. (WCAG 1.4.1)

Mobile and Interaction

21. 21.Touch targets are at least 44×44 CSS pixels. Small "remove" links next to cart items, tiny variant selectors, and close buttons on modals commonly fail this. (WCAG 2.5.5)
22. 22.Content doesn't require horizontal scrolling at 320px viewport width. Tables and wide product grids frequently break this. (WCAG 1.4.10)
23. 23.Users can zoom in on your site. Don't set maximum-scale=1 in your viewport meta tag. (WCAG 1.4.4)
24. 24.Text can be resized to 200% without content being cut off or features becoming unavailable. (WCAG 1.4.4)

What to Do With This List

Start with an automated scan. Tools like ada-scanner.com will catch a large percentage of WCAG failures automatically — missing alt text, contrast failures, form labeling issues. Automated tools catch roughly 30-40% of issues. The rest require manual testing.

Manual testing means: tabbing through your checkout with a keyboard, running VoiceOver or NVDA on your product pages, and resizing your browser to 320px width.

When you find issues, prioritize by lawsuit risk: form and checkout failures first, missing alt text second, contrast issues third.

If you want someone to run the audit for you and hand you a prioritized fix list, that's a service I offer. Start here.