Industry UX Research

E-Commerce Accessibility Research Study

A large-scale research study on how to improve accessibility and compliance specifically for e-commerce sites

At Baymard Institute we have a whole research topic devoted to accessibility specifically for e-commerce sites.

The study provides you with highly actionable accessibility guidelines specifically for the page types and UI elements found on e-commerce sites (WCAG 2.1 AA compliance). It illustrates how e-commerce sites can implement the accessibility-compliance requirements based on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG).

Baymard’s Accessibility research is based on the work of our Accessibility team, which over the past year has translated the foundational work of the WCAG to be more understandable in the e-commerce context. Analyzing the WCAG principles and standards from the standpoint of e-commerce, we’ve distilled these principles and standards into the 55 guidelines.

While our approach here is different from how we generally conduct our research — which relies on large-scale “Think Aloud” usability testing as the foundation (see Baymard’s general research methodology) — we’ve applied the same rigorous analysis process to ensure these guidelines are understandable, actionable, and beneficial to sites seeking to improve their accessibility.

In addition to the 55 foundational accessibility guidelines, 300+ of the existing Baymard UX guidelines have also been updated with accessibility implementation nuances.


Articles on E-Commerce Accessibility

FREE RESEARCH CONTENT

We’ve released a small subset of the Premium research finding on ecommerce accessibility for free in these articles:


Get Full Access to our Accessibility Research with Baymard Premium

PAID RESEARCH CONTENT

With Baymard Premium you get access to 55+ accessibility guidelines written specifically for e-commerce sites. On top of this you also get access to 650+ test-based UX guidelines and 150,000+ best practice examples - documenting how to best improve the UX of your e-commerce site.

Learn more about Baymard Premium access


E-Commerce Accessibility Audit

IN-DEPTH ACCESSIBILITY TESTING OF YOUR SITE

Is your e-commerce site accessibility in-compliant? How can accessibility be improved?

Baymard dedicated accessibility auditors will conduct an in-depth 200 hour accessibility audit of your e-commerce website testing your core e-commerce site experience and pages for accessibility in-compliance (WCAG 2.1 AA standard).

Learn more about e-commerce accessibility audits


What Our Clients are Saying

Bell Canada Logo
Thank you for the UX audit presentation, it was FANTASTIC. People here are quite pleased and amazed by the amount of work that was put into this.
Marc Ulrich Associate Director of Web Usability at Bell Canada
T-Mobile / Deutsche Telekom Logo
Thank you very much for the 7 usability audits of our country-specific sites. The audits have provided us with specific and actionable advice, allowed us to prioritize development resources, and enabled us to compare UX performance between the 7 different country-specific sites, and against State of the Art implementations. The audit itself is done really professionally, and the recommendations contain actionable and insightful information.
Mirko Sablic EU eTransformation at ​Deutsche Telekom / T-mobile
Avast Logo
We have recently tested some of your recommendations for the Avast checkout and got some great wins!
Tomas Janu E-Commerce Director at Avast
Lenovo Logo
Excellent tool – looking forward to using it with our other sites and prototypes as they’re developed.
Leah Kaufman Senior UX Research Manager at Lenovo
Capital One Logo
I wanted to begin by saying how incredibly impressed I have been with the degree/depth of content shared on UX/UI best practices for eCommerce experiences. This has by far been one of the most valuable workshops I have ever attended in my professional career.
Geoffrey Laux Digital Product Owner at Capital One
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Intelligent, consumer-focused insights that are clear and actionable. The team in the room really loved the way the Baymard Institute highlighted the optimizations in the various user experience elements (copy, layout, design, calls-to-action…), from the perspective of consumer struggles. Baymard’s Usability research really complements our other existing research tools.
Will Close Director of A/B Testing at Nike.com
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I’m reviewing the report this morning and I am delighted. The recommendations are detailed and our resulting actions are clear. I’m excited to share this with the rest of the team!
Donal Phipps Digital Marketing Leader at GE Healthcare
Google Logo
I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for the amazing work on this audit. You should know that this has been very well received internally and there’s a lot of excitement around adopting the ideas you have shared.
Sudeep Agarwal Growth Manager at Google Shopping
Ace Hardware Logo
I’m an avid user of your reports and recommendations. I have leveraged your articles and findings throughout my career in B2B, B2C, and hospitality.
Jenny Urban User Experience Director at Ace Hardware
Sears Logo
Baymard produces some of the most relevant and actionable user experience research available. They really understand the needs of UX and Product Management professionals, and their deep experience in the eCommerce field allows them to offer sophisticated, nuanced insights.
Kerry McAleer Former Director of UX Research at Sears
Deloitte Digital Logo
Baymard’s training provides the proper language and sound evidence to understand what it means to create a truly usable interface in the ecommerce business.
Semion Lapin UX Designer at Deloitte Digital
Integer Logo
My team loves Baymard Premium and it has become a valuable tool for us. We consult with a number of large brands and manage their eComm (both DTC and eRetail) and your data is amazing, it gives us all the testing data without having to run the tests ourselves. Our clients appreciate us having the depth of knowledge Baymard provides, we’ve used Baymard data multiple times to defend our recommendations and to inform our designs.
Dean Rizzuto UX Director at Integer Group
TaylorMade Golf Logo
Every day of the training was accompanied by a list of discoveries that I could directly design solutions for into my site. I was able to bring these designed solutions home with me and kickoff multiple optimization projects that I am confident will affect the site in a positive way, both in usability and conversion. Being able to have Christian and Lauryn from Baymard Institute look over my shoulder and give me feedback and direction based on the 28,000 hours of independent research that their organization has done was incredibly helpful.
Nick Frame Lead UX Designer for TaylorMade Golf
Harley-Davidson Logo
We found the audits extremely helpful and validated a number of changes we have been wanting to make or are in the process of making, so thank again for all the great insights.
Colleen Kersting eCommerce Marketing at Harley-Davidson
John Lewis Logo
The Baymard team has been a delight to work with on the JohnLewis digital platform audit. They responded to the brief very well, have been very accessible for ongoing clarification and queries and Rebecca was excellent in the recent team share, articulately presenting findings in an engaging walk-through with the wider team which will really support driving engagement and a robust response. Many thanks for all the effort and focus folks.
Greg Woods UX & UI Design and Research Manager at John Lewis
Office Depot Logo
Baymard has been a great resource in helping us improve the customer experience. We are continually applying these best practices to our sites.
Bryan Trogdon Director of User Experience at Office Depot
Shopify Logo
We’ve received some awesome feedback from our Merchant Success team as well as our merchants about all of the UX Audits we’ve had thus far with Baymard. Thank you so much to you and your team for all of your hard work. The pilot with Baymard has been going fantastic and I’m really excited with all that we’re learning! You have an amazing platform, team and super helpful data base for us to work with.
Nicole Papp Merchant Success Manager, Shopify
Best Secret Logo
We are very excited to finally proceed with the UX improvements, and I truly believe your audit report will be super helpful to put us ahead of the wave. If you ever need a reference, please do not hesitate to share my contact.
Marian Gradl-Schikora Managing Director at Best Secret
Columbia Sportswear Logo
This was indeed very helpful guidance and a very well-documented roadmap for us to fix, validate, organize, collectively understand and continually improve our ecommerce foundation.
Cat Brunson UX Manager at Columbia Sportswear
V-ZUG Logo
Thanks for this audit and your good work. This was exactly what I was aiming for. Also thanks for the very, very professional presentation, and answering all our countless questions. Very good work.
Andreas Blank Head of E-Commerce at V-ZUG
Ōura Ring Logo
First off, thank you. This was the most engrossed I’ve ever been in a 2-hour meeting. This [audit presentation] was incredibly insightful and very helpful. Many, many thanks.
Yvonne Kim Head of E-Commerce at Ōura Ring
Etsy Logo
Thank you. This was an excellent piece of work: professional, thorough, and actionable for the team. We’re very happy with the work Baymard has done for us.
Alex Wright Director of Research at Etsy
Jarden Consumer Solutions Logo
Thanks for everything. The audit was extremely useful, I think we have gained valuable insight.
Tara Costa Senior Manager at Jarden Consumer Solutions (FoodSaver, Breville, etc.)
Zenbooth Logo
I just wanted to thank you guys for all of the time that you’ve put into this, and for a great presentation. We don’t have anyone at the company that has formal UX/UI experience, so being able to tap into Baymard’s resources/expertise is an immediate win for us. Some of the things you pointed out, we’ve already identified as areas for improvement (which was validating), but a lot of the recommendations are things that we hadn’t identified and are for the most part immediately actionable.
Mischa Szymanski Marketing Coordinator at Zenbooth
prAna Logo
Wanted to thank you again for the checkout audit and walking us through the process. It was super helpful and we can’t wait to apply the changes to our checkout for a better user experience.
Ramona Rejali Senior UX Designer at prAna
Kohl’s Logo
I really like the work Baymard Institute does around usability. Their articles often get my Ecom gears turning.
Ryan Finley Site Search Professional at Kohl’s Department Stores
Nutrisystem Logo
The recommendations in our audit were awesome - well prioritized, actionable and helped us focus on what to optimize. This audit, along with the e-Commerce Reports & Benchmark Databases, are my go-to resources for thorough, insightful information. Thank you!
Erin Straub UX Design Manager at Nutrisystem
Keurig Green Mountain Logo
I have found the M-Commerce and E-Commerce reports very useful, thank you!
Josh Shaw Web Manager at Keurig Green Mountain
Wrench Inc. Logo
Baymard has helped so much: UX was a brand new role at my company when I was hired. I was researching, planning, and designing UX & UI for 5 different products, all by myself. After showing real-world, bottom-line results from a UX centered approach to our products, we have expanded our UX team and greatly improved our UX-to-product process. Baymard’s research database was a critical component to my (and my company’s) success. Thank you!
Geoff Jensen Head of UX at Wrench Inc.
Patch.Garden Logo
Baymard’s UX for ecommerce workshop is an intense week of data-driven, applied research which will give you the tools and insight to vastly improve your ecommerce user experience and sales performance. Having attended this course with the intent to make informed designs and decisions when revising the core areas of our website this year, my confidence has increased threefold. Christian demonstrated a deep understanding of the subject areas covered and great expertise while conducting this training which allowed for personalised guidance towards real world projects which is invaluable.
Tyler Hildebrandt Lead Developer at Patch.Garden
Boxed Logo
Here at Boxed we’re a small team who are BIG fans of your research. Your services have been immensely helpful to us as a small UX/UI team, and we are so excited to have a new version of our own product page going into development later this month.
Jillian Crudo Product Design Manager at Boxed
Hallmark Logo
These reports are fabulous. The content is exactly what our team has been looking for, and so much more! Extremely helpful, thank you!
Cary Moody Usability Researcher at Hallmark
StickerMule.com Logo
Wow, this is great! Just reviewed it with the team. It’s a huge help and we’re excited to fix these issues.
Anthony Thomas UX responsible at StickerMule.com
SiteOne Landscape Supply Logo
Baymard recently did a UX audit of our new e-commerce Website. We were very pleased with the results. The report and live review of the findings validated our approach to user experience, and also, we learned a lot about best practices for e-commerce UX. We believe Baymard’s work will help us increase revenue and user satisfaction.
Colleen Romero Digital Marketing Director at SiteOne Landscape Supply
Microchip Logo
A great presentation, and the results were very eye-opening. It’s really helpful.
Tiziana Collova e-Commerce Marketing Specialist at Microchip
Kingfisher PLC Logo
The Baymard E-commerce Usability reports have proven to be a valuable resource for UX teams within our organisation both at group and operating company level. The reports contain precise, actionable insights and recommendations which are backed up by extensive research and data. The severity and frequency ratings have helped our development teams to prioritise which areas to improve first. The most recent improvements we’ve recommended from the Ecommerce Search report have been extremely well received by senior stakeholders and have already been fed into the backlog.
Claire White UX Specialist for Kingfisher PLC
Overstock Inc. Logo
Thanks again for the great work on our checkout project. Our whole group found it incredibly insightful. We’re applying the suggestions you provided to our new checkout design which launches at the end of the month! One of my colleagues was also interested in your group’s competitive expertise with regard to responsive web and native apps.
Jaime Wilson Sr. Director of Design & Development at Overstock.com
B&H Photo & Electronics Corp. Logo
I can confirm that the list was fully implemented. Every time we put up a change we either A/B test or we watch it very closely to determine that it’s doing better and not the opposite. So I can confirm that these fixes have improved our checkout. Thanks for everything.
Abraham Berkowitz B&H Photo
Clicktale Logo
Some time ago we purchased the Ecommerce Homepage & Category report - the research and insights are extremely useful to us and help us a lot in our work!
Eliza Savov CX Research Team Lead at Clicktale
Author of ‘Don’t Make Me Think’ Logo
Damn. The reports that the @Baymard folks do cost money, but they’re worth it.
Steve Krug Author of ‘Don’t Make Me Think’
Belk Logo
I can not tell you how much help your benchmark studies have been for our company, e-commerce and UX teams. We have used and continue to use these reports for baseline benchmarks as we build test protocols or eye tracking scripts etc. in lab.
Catherine Brunson Customer Experience Strategist at Belk
ClickBank Logo
It is immensely valuable having a thorough, independent study to help validate my work and in particular, help facilitate buy-off from stakeholders. Baymard has quickly become one of my most trusted resources for the UX/UI field.
Jason Greene UX Design Lead at ClickBank
Smashing Magazine Logo
This is very, very useful! Let me check what we can do to improve the usability in the Smashing Shop.
Vitaly Friedman Editor in Chief of Smashing Magazine
S3 Stores Logo
We implemented “E-Commerce Checkout Usability” guide for all our stores and saw doubling of checkout conversion rates. We will soon work on implementation of other usability guidelines. Thank you Christian and Jamie for your excellent work!
Sergey Vorozhtsov CEO at S3 Stores, Inc.
Hallmark Cards, Inc. Logo
The walkthrough today was great. The report was very, very well done and loaded with great opportunities for us to improve our business. I wanted to again express my appreciation for working with us on such a condensed time frame last month. You and your team have been amazing partners to us and we very much appreciate the work, expertise and partnership.
Wendy Bonnstetter UX Director at Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Carnival Cruise Lines Logo
We like what we are reviewing from the audit - great analysis and feedback.
David Polanco UX Lead at Carnival Cruise Lines
n11.com Logo
We have worked with a number of third party companies before on various projects/audits, and I can certainly say that working with Baymard was not only a pleasure; but you delivered on time; to the level of depth we wanted; addressing important issues; and answering all our questions; and you did all this for a great price. A big THANK YOU on behalf of N11.
Efe Yaman Program Manager at n11.com
Elastic Path Logo
Baymard’s real-user research is invaluable for ecommerce marketers. It leaves no stone unturned, and with the guideline checklists provided, you’ll be well equipped to optimize your mobile presence.
Linda Bustos Director of E-commerce Research at Elastic Path
Room & Board Logo
The Baymard reports have proven to be an invaluable resource for us. Comprehensive, pragmatic and actionable. We have redesigned our checkout process and made changes to our category pages based on usability guidelines in the reports.
Jill McDonald UX Architect at Room & Board
Josh @ Digital Darts Profile Picture
The Baymard Institute have some seriously good reports on ecommerce usability, design, and best practices: http://t.co/cuxO3VwiVe
Josh @ Digital Darts @digital_darts
IATV Logo
Worth every dollar. It’s well done, good looking and simply very useful.
Jan Jursa Curator of IATV and the MobX conference
iProspect Logo
I love the information that you guys provide and have bought a couple of reports. Love them.
Karen Kysar Site & Search Optimization Lead at iProspect
Purch Logo
Really good rundown on all these thing. I definitely think we got a lot of value out of it, and we’re excited to get it all in and do some A/B testing on this.
Greg Dalby Director of E-Commerce at Purch
RepairClinic.com Logo
We implemented the majority of your checkout recommendations and a/b tested most of them, in every instance your recommendation provided the catalyst for us to make an improvement. Your approach and methodology has proven itself to be valuable. Now, when a new report comes out from your office we just buy it right away.
Chris Hall President of RepairClinic.com
Solutionists Logo
This is without a doubt the most important eCommerce training I’ve ever done. Knowing the right approach for converting the average user puts us massively ahead of the competition.
James Gilbert CEO at Solutionists
Fast Growing Trees Logo
We implemented this [1 of the 15 audit suggestions] and since then we’ve had a 20% increase in warranties added and a pretty healthy average order increase because of that. That was a great suggestion, it hit our bottom line immediately.
Justin French Director of E-commerce at Fast Growing Trees
aquazie Profile Picture
after benchmarking checkouts for a couple of hours last week… this resource is magical http://t.co/ISKOfyGE
aquazie @aquazie
Dekode Logo
Truly a great learning experience about almost every aspect of eCommerce and the steps you need to take to improve the shopping experience for your users. Everyone working with eCommerce should attend this course. Absolutely worth the investment!
Axel Giæver Senior UX Designer at Dekode
Bed Bath & Beyond Logo
Absolutely superb training! I’m genuinely impressed with how much I learned in 5 days. I would highly recommend this training to anyone who wants to learn how to create state of art e-commerce user experiences.
Duygu Kalaycioglu Senior UX Designer at Bed Bath & Beyond
Author of ‘Feed A Starving Crowd’ Logo
We implemented these guidelines on a client’s website and our e-commerce conversion rate increased 18.7% across the board. Most importantly our mobile conversions increased from 0.89% to 1.9% – we doubled our mobile revenue.
Rober Coorey Author of ‘Feed A Starving Crowd’
Apptus Logo
We’ve been consuming the Baymard Institute reports for a while but the in-house workshop was really the thing that connected all the dots around ecommerce UX together for us. Now our entire team has a common base of understanding, a language, and clear quantified evidence of the importance of common UX guidelines and pitfalls. Reading a report is one thing but actually forcing yourself to apply findings on a real world case was the greatest takeaway from the workshop. UX is often an tricky science subject to a lot of emotional bias and gut feeling. Not so much anymore.
Jakob Bignert VP of Product at Apptus
Ace Hardware Logo
A big thanks to you and the Baymard team for such an informative and valuable session. The Ace Hardware team truly appreciated the Baymard teams feedback, diligence and the overall presentation. We are looking forward to using the excellent information provided to improve the acehardware.com user journey.
Lexy Cascone Marketing Manager UX/UI at Ace Hardware
WCR Window Cleaning Resource Logo
I just wanted to let you know that I think your site is the best thousand bucks I’ve ever spent. I wish I found you years ago.
Chris Lambrinides Partner at Window Cleaning Resource

Test Methodology

This research on e-commerce accessibility is part of Baymard Institute’s full 130,000 hours of large scale research catalog, which is based on:

  • Usability Testing: 25 rounds of qualitative usability testing with 4,400+ test subject/site sessions following the "Think Aloud" protocol, mainly as in-person 1:1 moderated lab usability testing.
  • Manual benchmarking: 54 rounds of benchmarking the world’s 244 top-grossing e-commerce sites across 650+ UX guidelines (150,000+ implementation examples and 225,000+ UX performance scores).
  • In-lab eye-tracking testing.
  • Quantitative studies: 11 studies with a total of 14,453 participants.

Baymard’s research methodology is described in detail here.