accessibility-commerce

Start with a WCAG-compliant theme like Dawn or Sense, set alt text on all product images, and enable the skip-to-content link in header settings. For custom fixes, edit Liquid templates to add ARIA live regions for cart updates and fieldset/legend wrappers for variant swatches.

Add a visually hidden element with role="status", aria-live="polite", and aria-atomic="true" at the app root, then update its text content after each add-to-cart action. Clear the message after a short delay so repeated identical messages are announced again.

WP Accessibility is a free plugin that adds skip navigation links, ARIA landmarks, and form label fixes without code changes. Pair it with an accessible theme like Astra or Kadence for strong baseline WCAG AA coverage.

Yes, the native <dialog> element with showModal() traps focus inside the modal and responds to Escape without custom JavaScript, and it has over 96% browser support. This avoids hand-rolled focus trap implementations that often leak focus to background content.

Automated tools like axe and WAVE catch only 30-40% of real accessibility issues because they cannot judge context, such as whether alt text is meaningful or announcements make sense. Manual testing with NVDA plus Firefox and VoiceOver plus Safari is required for full coverage.

Overlay apps apply automated fixes without theme edits but can conflict with custom theme JavaScript and sometimes break existing functionality. Always validate with axe before and after installation, and treat overlays as a supplement rather than a substitute for semantic HTML fixes.