Noibu blog

How Do I Find Accessibility Issues on a Shopify Store?

Megan Glover

October 29, 2026

Blogs

To find accessibility issues on a Shopify store, run an automated scan on your home, collection, product, cart and checkout pages, then test each by keyboard and with a screen reader. Review your theme and third-party apps, since they add most of the markup. Rank what you find by how much it blocks a purchase.

TL;DR

Scan five templates first: home, collection, product, cart and checkout.
Then test by keyboard and with a screen reader, because automated scans miss real problems.
Check your theme and every app, since they add most of the markup shoppers interact with.
Rank issues by how much they block a purchase, and re-test after every change.

How do I find accessibility issues on a Shopify store?

Start with the pages a shopper touches on the way to an order. Scan those pages against WCAG, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, then confirm what you find by using the store the way a keyboard-only or screen reader user would. Automated tools are fast and consistent, and manual testing catches what they cannot, such as a focus order that makes no sense.

A six-step accessibility check for a Shopify store

STEP 1

Pick templates

Home, collection, product, cart and checkout.

STEP 2

Scan

Run an automated WCAG scan on each template.

STEP 3

Use the keyboard

Tab through every page. Can you reach and operate everything?

STEP 4

Use a screen reader

Spot-check that labels, buttons and errors are announced.

STEP 5

Check apps and theme

Find which issues come from the theme and which from an app.

STEP 6

Rank and re-test

Order by purchase impact, then scan again after changes.

Repeat the check after every theme update or new app.

What do accessibility problems usually look like on a store?

The same few failure types show up again and again. In the 2026 WebAIM Million analysis of the top one million home pages, 95.9% had detectable WCAG 2 failures, with an average of 56.1 errors per page. The most common were low-contrast text on 83.9% of pages, missing alternative text on images on 53.1%, missing form input labels on 51%, empty links on 46.3% and empty buttons on 30.6%.

On a Shopify store those map to familiar spots: light gray text on product pages, product images with no description, newsletter and search fields with no label, and icon-only buttons for the cart or menu with no accessible name. Our guide on which accessibility issues an online store should tackle first covers the ranking in more detail.

Where do theme and app issues come from?

Your theme sets the structure of most pages, and each app you install adds its own widgets, popups and forms. That means one store can have issues from several sources, and editing a theme template does not change an app's markup. When you find an issue, note whether it lives in the theme or in an app, because they have different owners. Shopify publishes accessibility conformance reports for some of its themes and its checkout, which are a useful reference when you are separating platform behavior from your own customizations.

Which issues block a purchase?

Rank by what stops an order. The purchase blockers are unlabeled checkout and account fields, keyboard traps in the cart, mini-cart or popups, buttons with no accessible name, and error messages that a screen reader never announces. A low-contrast footer link matters, but it does not stop an order the way an unlabeled card field does. Spend your first hours on the blockers, then work down.

How does Noibu's ADA agent help?

Noibu's ADA agent audits high-traffic pages against WCAG, ranks the issues it finds by the pages and shoppers they affect, and stages proposed changes for a person to review. After approved changes go live, it re-audits to confirm the issue is resolved. It works in the Noibu console and in AI tools such as Claude, and nothing ships without your approval. Manual testing with a keyboard and a screen reader remains part of any sound program. Read more in Noibu's ADA agent, the guide to running a website accessibility audit on your online store, or the ADA agent page.

The short version: what is the checklist?

Shopify accessibility check in six steps

Scan home, collection, product, cart and checkout against WCAG.
Tab through every page using only the keyboard.
Spot-check with a screen reader.
Separate theme issues from app issues.
Rank by purchase impact: labels, keyboard traps, button names, error messages.
Re-test after every change.

To run the agents on your own store data, start with Noibu's free website audit.

Noibu is AI for ecommerce operations, the always-on optimization system that keeps online stores running at their best. A team of supervised AI agents finds what's broken, slow, or leaking revenue, does the work, and hands results back for human approval. Trusted by retailers like Free People, Guess, Liquid I.V., and Ariat.

Frequently asked questions

How do I check my Shopify store for accessibility issues?

Run an automated WCAG scan on your key templates: home, collection, product, cart and checkout. Then test each one using only a keyboard, and spot-check with a screen reader. Automated tools catch many problems but not all, so manual testing stays part of the process.

Which accessibility problems are most common on store pages?

According to the 2026 WebAIM Million report, the most common failures on home pages are low-contrast text at 83.9%, missing image alternative text at 53.1%, missing form input labels at 51%, empty links at 46.3% and empty buttons at 30.6%.

Do Shopify themes and apps affect accessibility?

Yes. Your theme controls the structure of most pages, and every app that adds a widget, popup or form adds its own markup. Check each theme template and each app on key pages, because one unlabeled field or keyboard trap in an app can block a purchase.

What should I look at first on a Shopify store?

Start with purchase blockers: unlabeled checkout and account fields, keyboard traps in the cart or mini-cart, buttons with no accessible name, and error messages a screen reader never announces. These stop shoppers from completing an order.

What does Noibu's ADA agent do for a Shopify store?

The ADA agent audits high-traffic pages against WCAG, ranks what it finds by the pages and shoppers affected, and stages proposed changes for a person to review. After changes go live it re-audits the site. Nothing ships without your approval, and manual testing with a keyboard and a screen reader remains part of any sound program.