Guide
WooCommerce accessibility: what to check in your store
Online stores are where accessibility matters most — and where most accessibility lawsuits are filed. Nearly 70% of the more than 5,000 digital accessibility lawsuits filed in the US in 2025 were against online stores. Here are the problems to check first in a WooCommerce store, and how to find them.
Updated September 25, 2026. General information, not legal advice.
Product pages
- Product images and galleries need alt text that describes the product, not the file name.
- Variation selectors (size, color) need visible labels, and color swatches must not rely on color alone.
- "Sale" and "Out of stock" badges need enough contrast and must be available as text.
- Product descriptions need real headings and lists, not bold lines and typed dashes.
Cart and checkout
- Every checkout field needs a visible label — placeholders are not labels — and autocomplete for name, email and address.
- Errors must be written out and tied to the field ("Enter a valid postcode"), not shown only as a red border.
- Messages such as "Added to cart" or updated totals must be announced to screen reader users.
- Quantity buttons, remove links and coupon forms must work with a keyboard and have clear names.
- Payment fields embedded from gateways, and any CAPTCHA, need to work with a keyboard and screen reader too.
Across the store
- A "Skip to content" link, visible keyboard focus and menus that open with the keyboard.
- Mini-cart pop-ups, cookie banners and chat widgets that can be closed with Escape and do not hide the focused element.
- Filters and sorting that announce the updated result count.
How Lumtera helps WooCommerce stores
Lumtera's free plugin checks product descriptions and short descriptions by default, along with every post and page, and flags images without alt text, vague links, skipped headings and more — with fixes explained for the WordPress editor.
Review mode's free Whole page tab checks any product page as your browser renders it: real color contrast from your theme, the size of small buttons and links, focus hidden behind a sticky header or cookie bar, and more.
Lumtera Pro checks the pages your theme and WooCommerce generate together: the shop, cart, checkout and My Account pages, with a sample product added so the cart and checkout have something to show. It keeps the results and re-checks key pages on a schedule as a logged-out visitor, alerting you when new errors appear.
Automated checks find many common barriers, not all of them. Complete a real purchase using only the keyboard, then again with a screen reader, before you call the store done.
Questions
Is WooCommerce accessible out of the box?
WooCommerce publishes its own accessibility work, but your theme, extensions and product content decide how accessible your store actually is. Test your store as customers use it.
Does the European Accessibility Act apply to my store?
If you sell to consumers in the EU and are not a microenterprise, e-commerce is one of the services it covers. See our European Accessibility Act guide.
Can Lumtera check my checkout page?
Yes. In the free plugin, add a product to your cart, open the checkout page and use the Whole page tab in Review mode. Lumtera Pro's page checks add a sample product for you, keep the results, and scheduled checks re-test the checkout as a logged-out visitor.
Sources
Find these issues on your own site
Lumtera checks every post, page and product against 64 WCAG 2.2 checks while you write, checks the rendered page in Review mode, and scans the whole site in one click. Free, with no account.
Lumtera features that help
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Free
Whole-page review
Check a page the way visitors see it — theme, header, menus, footer and page-builder output — with real color contrast, target size and keyboard focus checks, from Review mode.
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Pro
Page checks for key pages and templates
Check many pages in one run — home, archives, search, the 404 page, WooCommerce shop, cart and checkout — with contrast from your theme, and keep every result for reports and scheduled re-checks.
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Free
Site-wide report and bulk scan
Scan every post, page and product, then see the average score, errors, items to review, coverage and the most common issues across the site.
Start with the free plugin today
All 64 checks, the editor sidebar, Elementor panel and site report — free, with no account and no page limits.