Michael Taylor is a blind screen reader user who writes about real-world digital accessibility barriers based on firsthand experience.
Summary:
In this first-person recap of the 2025 holiday shopping season, a blind screen reader user describes recurring accessibility failures on retail websites, including order confirmation pages, shopping carts, and transactional emails. The post highlights how these issues affect real customers during peak ecommerce periods.Every year, I make an unfulfilled promise to myself that I will not still be holiday gift shopping in the two or three days leading up to Christmas. This year, I finally did it.
I finished all of my holiday shopping with a whole week to spare.
Over the past month, I made many online purchases from various retail websites on both desktop and mobile devices. In this post, I want to share the accessibility trends I noticed during the 2025 holiday shopping season. These are areas of the online shopping journey where I encountered accessibility issues that I found especially concerning.
As always, my focus here is on screen reader access.
Order Confirmation Pages
We all know these pages. They appear once a purchase is complete and usually include the order number, payment details, and links to return to the homepage or view past orders.
I have not written much about order confirmation pages in the past because they were never particularly remarkable. This year, however, I encountered more accessibility issues on these screens than I expected.
In one instance, after completing a purchase on a mobile device, the screen reader failed to speak anything on the order confirmation page. The only thing I heard was the screen reader error sound that indicates there is nothing on the screen to focus on. I tried navigating multiple times with no success.
This was especially frustrating because I like to record order numbers in a separate document in case I never receive a confirmation email. In this situation, I had no choice but to ask a sighted person to read the information to me.
In another case, I wanted to return to the site’s homepage to double-check something after completing my order. As I navigated the confirmation screen, I only heard a few plain-text blurbs, followed by a series of unlabeled buttons and links. I had no way of knowing which option would take me back to the homepage.
In a third experience, the order number itself was announced incorrectly. The screen reader spoke, “Your order number is: Null.” A sighted user confirmed that the order number was visually present, but it was displayed in a stylized font that the screen reader did not recognize.
Key takeaway: When order confirmation details are not programmatically exposed, screen reader users cannot reliably confirm or reference completed purchases.
Cart Management
For reasons I still do not fully understand, managing items in shopping carts was tough this year.
In one case, the action buttons used to manage cart items, such as “Remove” or “Save for later,” did not correspond to the correct products. After reviewing the cart and thinking I had removed items I no longer wanted, I realized that I had actually deleted products I needed for the final purchase. The cart was entirely out of sync.
In another situation, I attempted to change the quantities of items before checking out. I made my selections and moved forward, only to discover that none of my changes had been applied. I tried several times again with the same result.
A sighted user later told me there was a “Update Cart” button directly above the “Checkout” button. That button needed to be activated for any quantity changes to take effect. The screen reader never announced this button, so I had no idea it existed.
In a third scenario involving clothing and shoes, the screen reader did not announce any of my selected sizes or colors in the cart, even though they were visible on screen. Without that information, it was impossible to review my order or confirm that everything was correct before completing the purchase.
Key takeaway: When cart controls and selections are not consistently announced, screen reader users cannot confidently review or complete transactions.
Email Accessibility
Email accessibility also seemed to decline during this holiday shopping season.
In one case, nothing in a retailer's shipment confirmation email was spoken aloud by the screen reader. I could not locate or activate the order-tracking link. This was especially problematic because I like to know precisely when packages will arrive so they are not left outside for extended periods.
In another instance, I received an email with a coupon code for signing up for marketing communications. No matter what I tried, I could not find the code using my screen reader. A sighted user later explained that the discount code was embedded in an image that had no alternative text.
I also encountered issues when trying to unsubscribe from marketing emails. In one case, I received three identical promotional emails within a few minutes of each other. When I attempted to unsubscribe, the links at the bottom of the email were treated as a single, continuous block of text. All five links were announced together as a single element, making it impossible to isolate and activate the unsubscribe option.
Key takeaway: When transactional and marketing emails are not accessible, screen reader users lose access to critical order, delivery, and account controls.
Looking Ahead
As the 2025 holiday shopping season comes to a close, it has been useful to reflect on the accessibility issues that appeared most often in my experiences, many of which I have encountered in previous years as well.
Looking ahead to next year, I hope to see meaningful improvements in these areas, especially during peak shopping periods when small accessibility failures can have the most significant impact.
Build the Business Case for Accessibility in 2026
Many of the accessibility issues I experienced this holiday season are not new, and they are not limited to peak retail moments. For organizations working to prioritize accessibility, real data can help move those conversations forward internally.
UsableNet’s 2025 ADA Digital Accessibility Lawsuit Report analyzes actual lawsuits filed against websites, mobile apps, and digital services. The findings provide concrete insight into where accessibility gaps continue to create legal and operational risk, and how organizations are using that information to plan for the year ahead.
If you are working to build a business case for accessibility in 2026, you can register to receive the 2025 lawsuit report data here.
This is a guest post from our marketing contributor, Michael Taylor. It reflects his opinions and experiences. Read more about Michael and some other posts on his experience online here.
