There are only a few days until Christmas, and I finally finished my gift shopping for the holiday season. From the beginning of November, when I began this process with early Black Friday shopping, I have placed many online orders through various e-commerce retailers with my screen reader.
Throughout this journey, I made several observations about my shopping experiences that directly relate to digital accessibility. This year, I noticed three things that caused me particular difficulty as a blind person who relies on a screen reader when shopping online.
I will explore these points further in the remainder of this blog. As always, my main focus will be screen readers because I am writing from my experience.
Difficulty With Order Tracking
Since holiday gift orders are often on a time crunch, I frequently find myself trying to track a shipment's progress to determine when precisely the delivery will arrive. This year, for some reason, I had a tough time doing this successfully.
I usually track orders through the link provided in the shipment confirmation email sent by the merchant. These emails were plagued with significant accessibility defects this year. For one, many links that take users to the tracking status page were completely unlabeled, causing my screen reader to either ignore the link or confuse it with other generic data in the email, such as customer service or help links.
Secondly, most of these shipment confirmation emails list the parcel carrier handling the delivery, which is essential for manual order tracking. For whatever reason, my screen reader would not read out the name of the shipping carrier when exploring the delivery details section of the email. At first, I thought there might have been a change, and this information was no longer included in the shipment confirmation emails.
However, after consulting a sighted individual, I was told that this data was present but represented by a graphical logo. The screen reader was not recognizing these unlabeled graphics.
When I successfully activated the tracking link, the order tracking pages were often wholly inaccessible. The main issues were focus problems, keyboard traps, and an inability to hear the step-by-step progress of the package's physical location.
For businesses, ensuring that shipment confirmation emails are accessible is critical. Start by ensuring all links are clearly labeled with descriptive text and avoid relying on graphical logos without accompanying alt text for vital information like parcel carriers. Testing order tracking pages with assistive technologies can help identify focus problems and keyboard traps before they frustrate customers
Screen Reader Lag and Performance Issues
As my online shopping activity increased in November, I noticed a strange problem with an increasing number of websites. I was experiencing significant screen reader lag and a decrease in overall performance.
Some symptoms were a delay in speech response after a key press and frequent freezing of the reader. I also noticed some weird focus issues that would cause errant activations because the item in the screen reader focuses would change in a delayed manner in the infinitesimal amount of time between focus and activation.
These issues occurred across several computing systems and on mobile devices as well, eliminating the possibility that it was a local device-specific problem. At first, I had no idea what was causing these issues. However, after some troubleshooting and experimenting with the help of a sighted user, I came to a potential conclusion.
Many sites, particularly large online retailers, change their visual design during the holiday shopping season. These changes may include color updates, animated or moving attractions, and font adjustments. I suspect these features, especially the animated graphics were wreaking havoc on screen reader performance and causing the abovementioned problems.
I ran a test to confirm this theory. I enabled a mode in my computer's settings that disabled or reduced complicated visual activity and screen motion. Surprisingly, screen reader performance on the affected sites was nearly normal after this change.
I know that temporary graphical changes are an effective and necessary part of seasonal marketing. However, these changes should be implemented so that they do not negatively affect the accessibility of the experience.
To prevent screen reader performance issues, businesses should consider testing seasonal visual updates for their impact on accessibility. Animated graphics and excessive screen motion can create barriers for people with disabilities relying on screen readers.
Inaccessible Homepages
As I did my holiday shopping this year, I noticed a disturbing trend: the accessibility of many sites' homepages has become less accessible.
I do not bother much with homepage exploration. When browsing products, I typically search for a specific category. However, I enjoy examining homepages during the holiday season to explore deals and discounts, product recommendations, new arrivals, gift ideas, recently viewed items, etc.
Retail homepages become quite a bit more jam-packed this time of year, and the new interface elements are not always adequately vetted for accessibility compliance.
The product carousel, a horizontally rotating wheel of information tiles, has been gaining popularity on modern e-commerce platforms. Due to their dynamic nature, these carousels are seldom accessible. While I can often place focus on the carousel, the screen reader will not automatically follow the information as it changes. The result is that I can only ever hear the visually present slide when the screen reader focus is initially placed on the carousel. These animated product carousels seemed more popular than ever this year.
To improve homepage accessibility, businesses can ensure interactive elements like carousels, including controls allowing screen reader users to pause, play, or navigate between slides manually. Including proper heading structures for added sections and ensuring auto-play videos have accessible mute and pause buttons are critical steps.
Another homepage-related problem that surfaces this holiday shopping season is the automatic video playback. When these videos have no screen reader-accessible method of pausing or muting, I must listen to the content as it plays in the way of screen reader speech.
Additionally, the increase in general clutter on shopping site homepages during seasonal periods makes it hard for a screen reader to navigate the page swiftly and efficiently. The biggest issue is that the code does not always provide a proper heading level designation when additional sections are added to the homepage. This issue makes it impossible to consistently and effectively jump around the page using filtered navigation and leaves screen reader users forced to rely solely on manual navigation, which is much slower and clunky.
TL;DR
- Order Tracking Issues: Shipment confirmation emails and tracking pages were inaccessible due to unlabeled links, graphical logos without text, and focus problems.
- Screen Reader Lag: Holiday-themed visual updates caused performance issues, such as lag, freezing, and errant focus changes.
- Inaccessible Homepages: Cluttered designs, inaccessible carousels, auto-playing videos, and missing heading structures made holiday homepages challenging to navigate.
Next Steps for Businesses: Test your site with assistive technologies to identify barriers, follow WCAG standards to make visual updates accessible, and ensure seasonal designs don’t compromise usability. For more guidance, visit our accessibility testing tool or register to watch our December webinar, 5 To-Dos for Your 2025 Accessibility Program, now available on-demand.
When businesses of all sizes begin to evaluate their holiday season performance at the start of 2025, digital accessibility must take center stage. With over 1 billion people worldwide living with disabilities, ensuring your website is accessible is a massive opportunity to reach a wider audience. Several discouraging digital accessibility trends emerged during this year's shopping season, highlighting the need for immediate action.
If you are in charge of your company's website, as a blind shopper, I urge you to prioritize accessibility now to deliver inclusive experiences, reduce risk, and stand out in the competitive holiday shopping landscape.
Book a free, 15-minute consultation with our team today. Together, we'll help you stay compliant, reduce risks, and build inclusive digital experiences.
Editor's Note: Our frequent contributor, Michael Taylor, wrote this post. This post reflects his opinions and experiences. Read more about Michael and some other posts on his experience online here.
