Making Magento more accessible. A better shopping experience for everyone.

An online store should be easy to use. That sounds obvious, but not every customer interacts with a website in the same way.

Some people rely on screen readers or keyboard navigation. Others have difficulty reading small text, distinguishing colours or using complicated forms.

Making your Magento store more accessible helps remove these barriers and makes it easier for more people to browse, find products and complete their purchases.

And quite often, improvements to accessibility also make a store more comfortable to use for everyone else.

Accessibility is about more than compliance

What makes a Magento store accessible?

Accessibility involves many parts of an online store. It is not something that can usually be solved by changing a few colours or installing a single extension.

Some important areas include:

• Keyboard navigation: Customers should be able to navigate and operate important functions without a mouse.
• Screen reader support: Content, controls and form fields need meaningful structures and accessible descriptions.
• Readable content: Text, colours and contrast should make information easier to understand.
• Accessible product pages: Product options, image information and purchasing controls should be usable with assistive technologies.
• Forms and checkout: Customers need understandable labels, clear error messages and accessible payment processes.
• Responsive interfaces: The store should remain usable with different screen sizes, zoom levels and input methods.

The internationally recognized Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provide a useful technical foundation for evaluating these requirements.

Learn more about the WCAG guidelines

Can an accessibility plugin solve everything?

Unfortunately, not quite.

Some tools promise to make a website accessible with a single click. While certain features can help individual users, an accessibility overlay cannot automatically fix every problem in a Magento theme, checkout or custom extension.

Real accessibility often requires reviewing and improving the underlying HTML, JavaScript, CSS and interactive components.

Automated testing tools are useful for identifying certain issues, but manual testing is also important.

This is especially relevant for Magento stores with individual themes, third-party modules and custom checkout functionality.

What about legal requirements?

Website accessibility is also a legal consideration in many countries.

Within the European Union, the European Accessibility Act introduced accessibility requirements for certain products and services, including consumer e-commerce services, from June 28, 2025.

Germany implemented these rules through the Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSG).

Accessibility obligations also exist in other markets, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Australia, although the applicable laws and requirements differ.

Not every online store is subject to the same obligations. Factors such as business size, the type of service, the countries served and applicable exemptions can make a difference.

I can help you address the technical accessibility of your Magento store. Whether specific legal requirements apply to your business should be assessed separately.

Can I improve accessibility myself?

Certainly, at least in some areas.

Store owners can improve product descriptions, write meaningful alternative text for images and make CMS content clearer and easier to understand.

However, other improvements require changes to the theme, custom extensions or checkout functionality.

Those are tasks where experience with Magento development becomes particularly important.

My approach to Magento accessibility

I have been working with Magento since 2011, developing, maintaining and improving online stores with a wide variety of technical requirements.

When reviewing accessibility, I prefer to start with the actual implementation rather than promise a universal solution.

Depending on your Magento installation, the work may involve:

• Reviewing the existing theme and important shopping processes.
• Identifying accessibility problems in navigation, forms and interactive elements.
• Improving frontend code, templates and individual components.
• Checking the accessibility of Magento extensions and their frontend functionality.
• Testing relevant improvements with appropriate tools and manual checks.

I also work with Hyvä, which provides a modern frontend foundation for Magento 2. However, using Hyvä doesn’t automatically make a store accessible. The individual implementation still matters.

What does it cost?

Every Magento store is different.

Some accessibility problems can be corrected with relatively small adjustments. Others require more extensive changes, particularly when custom themes, third-party extensions or complex checkout processes are involved.

That’s why I don’t offer a universal fixed price without first understanding the existing installation.

Let’s make your Magento store easier to use.

Perhaps you already know that parts of your store are difficult to use. Maybe you are concerned about accessibility requirements, or you simply want to improve the shopping experience for your customers.

I’d be happy to take a look.

An initial conversation is free and without obligation. We can discuss your Magento installation, identify the next sensible steps and determine how I can help.

Let’s talk about accessibility for your Magento store

I look forward to hearing from you!

Yours, Mex