Rosenverse
Online Shopping: Designing an Accessible Experience

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Online Shopping: Designing an Accessible Experience

Gold
Tuesday, March 28, 2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Share the love for this talk
Online Shopping: Designing an Accessible Experience
Speakers: Sam Proulx
Link:

Summary

Online shopping was first premiered in the 1980s, as a way for people who couldn’t shop in-person to easily make purchases. But how far we’ve come! In this talk, Fable’s Accessibility Evangelist Sam Proulx will walk you through some of the key factors to create an online shopping experience that is accessible to everyone. From his perspective as a full time screen reader user, and drawing on Fable’s thousands of hours working with people with disabilities, Sam will highlight how consistency, convenience, confidence, and customizability enable a smooth experience for all users, disabled or not. Let’s bring online shopping back to its accessibility roots!

Key Insights

  • •

    Consistency in layout and interaction reduces cognitive load for all users, especially those with disabilities.

  • •

    Convenience features like browser autofill significantly ease form completion for users with physical disabilities.

  • •

    Confidence in secure, predictable checkout processes is critical to prevent users with disabilities from abandoning purchases.

  • •

    Customization allows users to tailor experiences to their unique disability needs, improving accessibility.

  • •

    Offering multiple payment providers increases accessibility by providing alternatives if one option is unusable.

  • •

    Timed session interactions should allow extensions to avoid penalizing users who need more time, supporting accessibility and security simultaneously.

  • •

    Accessible experiences designed for edge cases end up benefiting all users, enhancing overall user satisfaction.

  • •

    Automated accessibility testing tools identify code issues but cannot fully capture real-world user experience problems.

  • •

    Involving people with disabilities across all stages of design and development is key to building truly accessible products.

  • •

    Lack of accessibility not only frustrates disabled users but can cause significant business loss through customer attrition.

Notable Quotes

"Accessible experiences are better experiences for everyone whether you are a person with a disability or not."

"If it didn’t come from Amazon or Costco, I probably don’t own it because I know the experience will be consistent."

"Consistency reduces cognitive load not just for screen reader users but for people with ADHD and other cognitive challenges."

"Browser autofill isn’t just convenience; it removes barriers to purchase for people with physical disabilities."

"Offering the ability to save your progress allows users with disabilities to complete tasks on their own time."

"Lack of confidence caused by unlabeled or difficult controls often leads assistive tech users to give up on purchases."

"The more payment providers you offer, the higher the chance everyone can pick what works best for them."

"Accessible foundations are built by involving voices of people with disabilities from ideation to prototyping to launch."

"There isn’t necessarily a conflict between security and accessibility; it’s a matter of thoughtful design."

"People with disabilities often won’t ask for help; they simply go to an accessible competitor instead."

Ask the Rosenbot
Dave Hora
A Research Skills Evolution
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Jim Kalbach
Jazz Improvisation as a Model for Team Collaboration
2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Gold
Dave Malouf
The Future of DesignOps
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Bria Alexander
Opening Remarks
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Greg Petroff
Everything is About to Change: Software as Material
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Jason Mesut
Shaping design, designers and teams
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Maggie Dieringer
Cutting through the Noise
2020 • DesignOps Community
Sarah Auslander
Incremental Steps to Drive Radical Innovation in Policy Design
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Bria Alexander
Charting the future of DesignOps: A community workshop
2024 • DesignOps Community
Robert Reimann
Taming Design Complexity with UX Models
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Daniel J. Rosenberg
Designing with and for Artificial Intelligence
2022 • Enterprise Community
James Lang
Hopeful Futures for UX Research
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Liza Pemstein
Scaling Research Via an Ops First Model at Clever
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Billy Carlson
Tips to Utilize Wireframes to Tell an Effective Product Story
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Bianca Jefferson
From Sprints to Systems: Operationalizing Continuous Discovery Through DesignOps
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Abbey Smalley
Scaling UX Past the Size of Your Team
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold

More Videos

Marc Fonteijn

"Respondents who feel very connected are twice as likely to say they’re making a significant impact."

Marc Fonteijn Ru Butler

Increase your confidence, influence, and impact (through a Professional Community)

December 3, 2024

Dem Gerolemou

"You have to make the hard thing easier to do. Behavioral change must be lower friction."

Dem Gerolemou Alexis Oh Neef Rehman

Climate technology fundamentals

May 15, 2024

Daniela Magaña Flores

"The faster the reaction, the less distorted it is by cognitive processes, capturing genuine gut feelings."

Daniela Magaña Flores Ariane Rahn Jeff Ephraim Bander

Ahead of Competition: Learn What UX Benchmarking Can Do for Your Business Today

March 10, 2022

Abbey Smalley

"Not growing the team was disheartening but led me to create training for partners to start taking a user-centered approach themselves."

Abbey Smalley Sylas Souza

Scaling UX Past the Size of Your Team

January 8, 2024

Patrick Commarford

"Before transitioning designers, we reviewed and agreed on a prioritized list with all executive leaders."

Patrick Commarford

Design Staffing for Impact

January 8, 2024

Xenia Adjoubei

"We mapped every individual journey on Google Earth attaching quotations and photographs to each location to represent human experiences."

Xenia Adjoubei Sean Bruce

Empowering Communities Through the Researcher in Residence Program

March 29, 2023

Craig Villamor

"If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product."

Craig Villamor

Design Systems for Ethical Design

January 26, 2023

Jon Fukuda

"DP&M tools pull together necessary reference materials and design deliverables, showing how they relate to each other."

Jon Fukuda Ellie Krysl

Design Planning and Management Support

October 3, 2023

Iain McMaster

"Ambiguity is like doing a 3000-piece puzzle without knowing what the end picture looks like. You start piecing edges first."

Iain McMaster IHan Cheng

Design and Product: from Frenemy to Harmony

November 29, 2023