Kris examines Shopify to see if there has been any progress in 2023 in terms of helping their customers (website owners) prevent ADA website litigation and thereby increasing access to people with disabilities to those websites.
The findings: no accessibility statement is published on the homepage, overlay widgets / plugins are still featured on the app store, access to people with disabilities is not among the social causes listed, there are two guides on accessibility, and an accessibility policy as mandated for AODA compliance.
Shopify website owners have been sued ad nauseam over website accessibility for years (most of my client calls are with Shopify customers) and yet the publicly traded company's response has remained weak at best.
Here is the link to the Austen Allred Twitter thread on Shopify and ADA compliance after Austen's sister was sued:
https://twitter.com/Austen/status/1486740992636030981
#ShopifyAccessibility #ShopifyADACompliance #Shopify
Kris designed the ADA Compliance Course (ACC) as instructions you can give your team to fix the most commonly claimed issues in ADA website lawsuits. The ACC is really an SOP for your web team.
Your team can get started in minutes at https://ADACompliance.net/.
Connect with Kris directly on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/adabook
https://www.linkedin.com/in/krisrivenburgh
Kris offers accessibility services including WCAG 2.1 AA manual audits and remediation at https://accessible.org.
Kris also wrote the book on ADA compliance for digital assets. You can find out more about The ADA Book at https://ADABook.com.
It's been several months since I've looked
at Shopify's web website for accessibility information. And with Shopify playing such a central role
in ADA website litigation, I wanted to see if there were any updates. Most of my prospective client calls are with
Shopify website owners, so so I went back and I've gone through and looked
at their website and I don't see any advancement in terms of accessibility. Currently I am sharing the screen of the Shopify
homepage and I'm down at the footer and t
here is no accessibility
statement. There is nothing on accessibility. There is a section labeled Global Impact and
there are links for sustainability Social Impact, Build Black,
Build Native and Research but nothing on accessibility. And wouldn't you think you would have a Build
Accessible link or something to that effect on there? But I'm going to go ahead and click the Social
Impact link and it says entrepreneurship is an opportunity
for everyone. The future becomes reality by advocating for
underrepresented communities globally, making our company and industry
reflect, etc. Then it says removing barriers to entrepreneurship. Commerce is a powerful force in the world. We remove barriers to entrepreneurship so
that anyone can leverage its power to create and we go on and on. Another section says fostering a diverse tech
ecosystem. The technology industry needs more voices. We are focused on creating equitable access
to education and career opportunities that support people who will
p
ower the future of global commerce. And then it says making resources available
to all. To increase entrepreneurship, we have to ensure
that all tools and support needed to succeed are accessible to anyone. So I'm going to click on the link that says
explore our learning initiatives. And then it says access to learning opportunities
is essential for entrepreneurs. Our focus is on maximizing any entrepreneur's
chance of success by opening access to as many resources as possible, saying
all the ke
ywords that would lead to talking about digital accessibility,
except for that's not what these pages are about. They're about entrepreneurship and this general
feel good social cause. They're saying a lot, but they're also saying
a little because there's just not much of substance on these pages. And so they've got this open learning program. They're working with colleges and universities
to develop digital learning experiences, but nothing on. I don't see anything specifically on accessibility
,
although they've mentioned access many of times. Nothing on accessibility. So nothing from their homepages, no links. I continue to look around and there is an
Accessibility Best Practices for Shopify themes. So I have this document pulled up. So this is some documentation on how to increase
accessibility. And there's some good information on there. It's not extensive, but there is some good
information. They also have an accessibility policy. And so this policy, it looks like it's a result
of
a requirement of the Ontarians for Disabilities Act. And it says feedback process. Shopify welcomes any feedback as we use to
provide services to persons with disabilities. And then it says accessibility team. And the country is Ontario. So this is about AODA compliance, right? Because number twelve, the number twelve heading
says Request for AODA Compliance documents. I don't know if this is there's another page
on accessibility for themes. So there's some information on accessibility
for them
es. It's not as extensive as the other page, but
that appears to be it. And then we have the Shopify App Store, which
still houses a number of overlay widgets that are in this case,
I think they'd be called apps or plugins. And so there are any number of overlay widgets
on here. But this gives the idea, the false impression
that these overlay widgets can make a Shopify website accessible, that
they can make it ADA compliant, WCAG conformant, when if you're watching this
channel, you know that th
at is not the case. So there are all these apps, but they give
Shopify website owners, shopify customers this impression that they can make
a website accessible, ADA compliant with these overlay widgets. And in fact, I have a tweet pulled up, and
this tweet thread is from Austen Allred. And so Austen and I'm just going to click
hover over his name. Austen is the co founder and CEO of Bloom
Tech, the school that invests in you. So he has 282.4 thousand followers. And on January 27, 2022, he wrote
, my sister's
small business got a letter saying someone is suing her for her
Shopify site not being compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Her lawyer is telling her to pay the $10,000
settlement. And then he also replies to his tweet, it
was not a lawsuit, just a letter. There are only a couple of employees. It's all fixed now. And then he writes, it was fixed by installing
a Shopify extension plugin. Whatever Shopify calls them, took 30 seconds. And then someone else says, shouldn
't Shopify
be able to help with making her website accessible? So this is someone who is tech savvy. They went with the overlay option, and presumably
in part because Shopify is putting these plugins on their App Store and
they're giving them credibility. And so this is what's happening right now. And I'm recording this on June 20, 2023. And Shopify, their customers have been sued
so many times for accessibility. So many times. Shopify website owners might be the most targeted
defendants in webs
ite accessibility litigation. I have talked to so many of them. And so for Shopify, really, what the response
should be is to make their website builder platform so that you
can make a website as accessible as possible outside, out of the box. And primarily this refers to I'm referring
to interactive elements, making sure that those interactive elements have
appropriate name, state roles and or values where applicable. Right? But it goes beyond that. It really goes into making sure your platform
is as accessible as possible, and then prompting website owners where additional
accessibility or accessibility could be involved with specific
things that they upload, add, edit, et cetera. As a website builder platform, you want to
do all you can. It's understandable. And everybody should know that because someone
can customize a website and they're going to upload content that we can't. As a platform, you can't do everything to
make sure that website is accessible. Part of this is on the web
site owner, right? But then also a significant part is on these
website builders, which have tremendous resources. They're very tech savvy. They have the developers, they have the money. I looked and the last reported revenue on
Google is $2.93 billion. Shopify is a publicly traded company and we're
still at this point where their website owners are being sued. And then the downstream effect is that people
with disabilities are harmed because all of these websites, right, all
of these popular ec
ommerce websites, are still missing basic accessibility
considerations. With the lack of those considerations, it
is either impeding access altogether or it's causing a significant degrADAtion
of experience, or it's just a stacking inconveniences, whether they
be minor or mild or fair or significant. The point being is that these websites can
be made more accessible and we can improve access to people with disabilities. I'm not saying that Shopify must do everything,
but they need to take strong
er action and they definitely need to
have an accessibility statement on their website. So this is the state of Shopify and accessibility. At least outwardly obvious, right? We can't know much more than what is made
public, but so far, with these pages and the resources provided,
shopify still has a lot of work to do. And really it should have been done a long
time ago, because this has been a problem that has been ongoing for
years. And I think Shopify, if they really want to,
they have these l
inks that are for social programs, social causes,
making sure there is access. I'm perplexed. I don't know why they haven't done more for
accessibility.
Comments
It's really unfortunate but Shopify website owners are on their own to make it ADA accessible and that means a 5 figure investment for most.