AccessProof

The Shopify accessibility checklist

Last updated: July 2026

Fifteen checks that cover the failures we actually find on Shopify storefronts — ordered roughly by how often they appear in our scans (see the research: 16 leading UK stores, all failing). The first ten are automated-detectable; the last five need a human. For the legal context, read the EAA guide.

Automated-detectable (a scanner finds these)

  1. Colour contrast ≥ 4.5:1 for body text — the most common failure (13 of 16 stores). Fix in theme settings → colors/typography; check muted text, sale badges, and text over images.
  2. Every product image has alt text — Admin → Products → image → Edit alt text. Full how-to in our alt-text guide.
  3. Links have discernible text — icon-only links (social, cart, wishlist) need a visually-hidden label or aria-label in the theme's snippets.
  4. Buttons have discernible text — icon buttons (search, menu, close) same fix — aria-label or visually-hidden span in Liquid.
  5. Tap targets ≥ 24px — mobile pagination dots, swatches, and close buttons — theme CSS padding fix.
  6. Form fields have labels — search boxes, newsletter signups, quantity inputs: a real <label>, not just placeholder text.
  7. Selects have accessible names — variant pickers and currency/country selectors — label or aria-label in the theme.
  8. Valid ARIA — themes and apps love aria-* attributes and get them wrong; invalid roles/attributes actively mislead screen readers. A scan pinpoints each one.
  9. Scrollable regions are keyboard-reachable — horizontally-scrolling product rows need tabindex='0' so keyboard users can reach the content.
  10. One h1 per page, sane heading order — screen-reader users navigate by headings; product grids full of h3s with no h2 are a maze.

Manual checks (no tool can judge these)

  1. Full keyboard walk-through — Tab through home → product → add to cart → cart: no traps, visible focus ring everywhere, menus and modals dismissible with Escape.
  2. Screen-reader pass on one product page — VoiceOver (Cmd+F5 on Mac) or NVDA: can you identify the product, pick a variant, and add to cart by ear alone?
  3. 200% zoom — text-only zoom to 200%: nothing clipped, no horizontal scrolling on mobile-width.
  4. Motion & autoplay — carousels pausable, no autoplaying video with sound, respect prefers-reduced-motion.
  5. Published accessibility statement — conformance status, known issues, contact route — generate one free with our statement generator.

Doing this for real

The honest workflow: scan (finds items 1–10 with exact locations), fix in priority order, do the five manual checks, publish your statement, and re-scan on a schedule so it stays fixed. The AccessProof app automates the scanning, maps every failure to its Shopify fix, and keeps the dated evidence log — or start with a one-off expert audit.