Online Shopping: Designing an Accessible Experience
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."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Reddit recently fixed their upvote button so it announces toggle states, something many sites neglect."
Sam ProulxEverything You Ever Wanted to Know About Screen Readers
June 11, 2021
"Even though we are virtual, we are still community and must treat each other with kindness and respect."
Bria AlexanderOpening Remarks
November 17, 2022
"You do not have to go publicly thank the employer who just laid you off. They’ll be fine without it."
Corey Nelson Amy SanteeLayoffs
November 15, 2022
"Edgy is like a Rosetta Stone for enterprises, expressing the same thing in languages designers, strategists, and architects use."
Milan GuentherA Shared Language for Co-Creating Ambitious Endeavours
June 6, 2023
"We’re starting to see the role of the central researcher shift more towards coaching than just doing research themselves."
Erin May Roberta Dombrowski Laura Oxenfeld Brooke HintonDistributed, Democratized, Decentralized: Finding a Research Model to Support Your Org
March 10, 2022
"The little sounds that VoiceOver makes are like bird song; you only notice them when they're gone."
Sam ProulxUnderstanding Screen Readers on Mobile: How And Why to Learn from Native Users
June 6, 2023
"We used AI tools like NotebookLM and Gemini primarily to shortcut getting up to speed and managing transcripts, without focusing on specific tools themselves."
Mujtaba HameedThe new horizon of ethnography: using AI to unlock the full potential of in-person research
March 11, 2026
"Future thinking helps us create future memories, essentially to hack our neurobiology and trick our brains into creating pathways to imagine possible futures."
Ilana LipsettAnticipating Risk, Regulating Tech: A Playbook for Ethical Technology Governance
December 10, 2021
"When we design for the edges, we get the middle for free."
Samuel ProulxFrom Standards to Innovation: Why Inclusive Design Wins
September 10, 2025
