Digital accessibility: Supporting a culture of continuous improvement

In spite of all the attention and welcomed awareness digital accessibility has received in recent years, lawsuits filed against companies who are not attentive to this issue show no signs of abating. In fact, the number of suits brought to federal court citing the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) reached a new record in 2022 (and this is just the number of cases that were involved in litigation -- the actual number of ADA demand letters was likely much higher).

Throughout 2022, several high-profile household brand names were the target of legal actions, including the Gap, Zola, Barnes & Noble and Goop. In fact, e-commerce companies remain the biggest risk for digital accessibility lawsuits, amounting to 77 percent of cases according to UsableNet. Almost 20 percent of the top 500 e-commerce websites received accessibility complaints in 2022; however, there is an interesting trend of accessibility lawsuits against smaller e-commerce companies (less than $50 million per year) which is on the rise. 

What is underlying this ongoing upward trajectory? Obviously, more lawsuits are the natural by-product of more businesses moving online, and more people with different abilities conducting more of their daily activities there. According to statistics, consumers are now interacting digitally with twice as many industries as they were before the COVID-19 pandemic. But we believe there’s another significant factor here -- the breakneck pace of e-commerce site code changes.

Frequently Changing Code and an Ownership Void Creates a Perfect Storm

Today, the rate and pace of changes occurring on e-commerce sites is faster than it’s ever been. Much of this has to do with the rise in social media, particularly influencer marketing which can result in products suddenly going viral -- and, conversely, demand suddenly dropping off a cliff in favor of something else -- within hours. Brands can see a huge boost in profits when they couple digital marketing efforts across their social media channels and their traditional e-commerce storefronts. In fact, it’s estimated that online stores with a strong social media presence have an average of 32 percent more sales than those that do not. 

The challenge is that traditional e-commerce storefronts are having difficulty keeping up with this highly fickle, fleeting, topsy-turvy nature of social media-induced demand. According to one survey, a large number of marketers are frustrated with the availability of developer resources and believe it takes far too long for code changes to be made. When a product suddenly explodes in the social media zeitgeist, an e-commerce company can ill afford to wait days or even weeks for changes to be made, such as highlighting the product that’s gone viral, on their traditional storefront. This leads to e-commerce marketers often making fast, on-the-fly changes themselves, and while this increased agility can be advantageous, it can quickly turn into an Achilles heel from a digital accessibility perspective. As changes are needed so fast, there’s just no time to think about accessibility. The team says, "let’s get this out and we’ll improve it afterwards," but they never get to optimize for accessibility because they quickly move on to work on campaigns and there is no time.

With more individuals (some of whom aren’t even aware of WCAG guidelines and accessibility requirements) making website changes, the stage is perfectly set for regression, no matter how rigorous a previous one-time accessibility audit may have been. Quite often, what was once an accessible digital experience suddenly is not. As one industry executive famously said, "accessibility is a sandcastle we have to keep constantly rebuilding, or the ocean wipes it away."

More frequent code changes are coalescing with another trend -- e-commerce business trying to maximize efficiency and cutting costs on resources. Unfortunately, people dedicated to website accessibility are often among the first to go. Or, as e-commerce businesses try to do more with less people, digital accessibility becomes one of dozens of things that web designers are supposed to monitor -- but instead, it drops down the list of priorities.

Addressing Accessibility "As You Go"

The reality is that we all bear responsibility for digital accessibility. But it can be very difficult for e-commerce marketers, especially those moving at such a rapid clip, to keep on top of digital accessibility needs and requirements. And, most know that digital accessibility is not a "one and done" end-goal that can be achieved through a single audit or website redesign, no matter how mammoth or exhaustive. While such initiatives can serve as a valuable bedrock, digital accessibility is an ongoing, never-ending process that an entire e-commerce business must commit to.

Fortunately, for e-commerce marketers, there are numerous free tools available to continuously audit their websites, as well as new approaches like automated tagging before content even goes live, which is specially designed to accommodate today’s pace of change. By automatically flagging violations (which may include images lacking alt text, missing page elements or heading tags, improper tab order and more) before a site goes live, e-commerce companies can foster a culture of continuous improvement and prevent violations from incrementally being built in. And they can do all this without necessarily having to upskill or slow down those who regularly work with website content.

It’s been estimated that in the last three years, the e-commerce industry has experienced growth that would have taken almost a decade by pre-pandemic standards. In this growth spurt, digital accessibility was sometimes neglected and sadly, orphaned. But as e-commerce growth rates return closer to pre-pandemic levels (though still growing solidly), organizations now have an opportunity to reconsider how they approach accessibility, knowing that superior storefront digital accessibility and agility can readily co-exist.

Image credit: nmedia/depositphotos.com

Allison Vernerey is VP of Product, Zmags.