[P] Accessibility (ADA, a11y)

Accessibility is a word that encompasses a wide range of concerns. To keep it simple, accessibility is what allows customers with disabilities (visual or motor deficiencies) to be able to use your store easily (for instance with keyboard or screen readers).

At Maestrooo, we highly value accessibility and ensure our themes use the best practices. We are committed to constantly improving our themes to ensure that your store is fully usable by any users.

Is my theme compliant with ADA?

ADA (short for Americans with Disabilities Act) is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability (Wikipedia link).

In the web context, it includes several rules that a website owner must respect, such as offering keyboard navigation and alternative text for images and icons.

Being fully compliant with ADA regulations is a process that can be hard, and we currently do not guarantee full ADA compliance. However, our themes already follow many best practices to allow your store to be fully usable by your users. So far, we have not heard of anyone receiving a lawsuit for using our theme Prestige. In the highly improbable case you are receiving an ADA lawsuit using our theme Prestige, please reach our support team, who will help you fix potential issues (as long as the theme causes those).

Best practices

The theme alone is just one part of your store. Despite our efforts to improve accessibility and create a safe environment for your users, it is also your responsibility, as a merchant, to follow best practices to protect your users and your business:

• Limit the usage of apps: while the theme itself is optimized for accessibility, apps might add code that is not accessible. We recommend that you reach the developers of the apps you are using to learn more about their accessibility policy.
• Use content that is accessible: some of your users may suffer from blindness or other deficiencies that might require the usage of assistive technologies like screen readers. Those users might not be able to understand your content if it is too vague. For instance, when a button labeled "Learn more" might make sense for a user without disabilities based on the section context, this wording might be too vague (learn more about what?) for others. You could, for instance, replace such wording with something more explicit, such as "Learn about our dresses."
• Color contrast: while our themes give you ultimate flexibility for colors, you are responsible for ensuring that the color combination you choose is contrasted enough. You should ensure a text contrast of AA if possible between your background and text color. You can use a contrast checker tool to ensure that your color combinations fulfill accessibility requirements.
• Avoid too many videos: while it might be tempting to use videos everywhere, videos are not always ideal from an accessibility point of view. If possible, prioritize images (with an appropriate Alt tag) and text. Videos should be an extra element to promote your content, but should not be the only way to convey information to your users.