Before I hand a site over to a client, I put my mouse aside and try to buy something.
That's the most revealing part of a short accessibility check I run on every build. It takes about 15 minutes and needs no special software. It also catches the problems that show up most often. In WebAIM's 2026 analysis of the top million home pages, 95.9% had accessibility failures that automated testing could detect. The same few issues lead that list every year.
The four checks
1. Alt text. Check each image and ask yourself: if this picture didn't load, would the words still describe it? A product photo needs something like "Speckled stoneware mug, 12 oz," not "IMG_4402." WebAIM found missing alt text on 53.1% of pages. People who use screen readers can't buy a product they can't identify. Good alt text also helps image search find your products.
2. Color contrast. Paste your text and background colors into WebAIM's free contrast checker. Body text should hit a ratio of at least 4.5:1. Light gray on white looks elegant in a mockup, but it's hard to read on a phone in sunlight. Low contrast was the most common failure, found on 83.9% of home pages.
3. Keyboard checkout. Put the mouse away and press Tab. Can you always see where you are on the page? Can you add an item to the cart, open the cart, fill in shipping and reach the pay button? If you lose track of where you are inside a pop-up or a date picker, anyone who uses a keyboard to get around is stuck. A customer who gets stuck at checkout leaves without buying.
4. Form labels. Click the word "Email" next to a field. If the cursor jumps into the box, the label is connected properly. Placeholder text that disappears once you start typing doesn't count as a label. Labels were missing on 51% of pages. Booking and checkout forms suffer most, and those are the forms that bring in money.
Why it's worth the time
Accessibility usually gets treated as a legal box to tick, and compliance does matter. But each of these fixes also makes the site easier for everyone: the customer squinting at a phone outside, the one with a broken trackpad, the one filling out a form in a hurry.
This check doesn't replace a full audit. It does catch the most common problems before your customers run into them.
If you can't buy from your own site without a mouse, some of your customers can't either.
