Page 4 - Accessibility

An accessibility statement is no longer optional under the BFSG, it is a legal requirement with clearly defined content. Companies that honestly document known limitations, provide a working feedback mechanism, and keep the statement regularly updated meet the requirements of BFSG and EAA and protect their business from cease-and-desist claims.

Screen reader users lose no information when a purely decorative image is missing, but they lose important context when an informative image has no alt text. This article shows a practical test for telling the two apart, correct techniques like empty alt, CSS background images and aria-hidden, and common mistakes when handling icons and decorative graphics in Magento and Hyvä stores.

A keyboard trap happens when keyboard focus enters a modal, dropdown, or third-party widget and can't find its way back out with Tab or Shift Tab. For keyboard users and screen reader users, that means a complete blocking point. This article covers common causes, a systematic test procedure, and a correct focus trap implementation that can always be exited reliably with the Escape key.

A mini-cart that updates only visually leaves screen reader users unsure whether a product was actually added. With a correct live region, full keyboard operability and clean focus management, the flyout becomes usable, testable and WCAG compliant for every visitor alike.

Forms are the most critical touchpoint on any website for people using screen readers, because without correct label association, meaningful fieldset and legend grouping and clearly communicated required fields, a checkout simply becomes unusable. This article walks through a practical address form to show how Magento and Hyva developers build forms that are semantically correct, communicate errors accessibly and implement WCAG compliant input assistance.

The checkout is the most business-critical page in any online store, and it is exactly where accessible interfaces fail most often. Blocked progress indicators, invisible error messages and keyboard traps in the payment step cost paying customers and open legal exposure under accessibility law. This article shows how to systematically audit, test and implement every single step of the checkout process for Magento and Hyva.

Automated accessibility tests with axe-core reliably catch roughly a third of all WCAG violations and integrate directly into an existing Playwright or Cypress suite. With a baseline strategy the build only fails on new violations, while known legacy issues stay visible instead of blocking the pipeline permanently. Manual review remains essential for keyboard operation and screen readers.

Websites that only work with a mouse exclude keyboard users, screen reader users, and people with motor impairments from key functionality. This article explains the WCAG baseline requirement of full keyboard operability: native tab order, correct use of tabindex, standard interaction patterns with Enter, Space, and arrow keys, and a practical keyboard only walkthrough of your own site as a first step.

Treating accessibility as a checklist to tick off fails at every new case that is not exactly on the list. The four WCAG principles Perceivable, Operable, Understandable and Robust provide the reasoning framework behind it, helping developers classify and correctly solve unfamiliar accessibility problems instead of blindly following rules.

Marking errors only in red, success only in green, and links only through color excludes color-blind and low-vision users from important information. A second cue such as an icon, text label, or underline makes forms, status badges, and links reliably readable for every user group and satisfies WCAG 1.4.1 without extra design effort.