Website Accessibility

Tommy Bahama

Overview

Our team at Tommy Bahama recently got involved in a project to improve the accessibility of our website. Previously most of our focus in this area revolved around alt text. While obviously important, the team had not yet done a deep dive across accessible technlogies and their interaction with tommybahama.com. For example using a screen reader, keyboard controls with no mouse or using browser extensions to help parse a website. This became an exciting opportunity for me to improve the user experience for all guests.

Research

While I was by no means an accessiblity expert prior to this project, I certainly learned a great deal as we progressed. One resource I continually refereced was the world wide web consortium (W3C) website on accessibility standards. Whenever we had questions on best practices or how to implement a solution, I found it there. Much of my time was also spent reviewing other ecommerce sites that have proven to be strong in accessibility. I then shared these best practices with my team to better support this effort in any future design and development.

Review

After building and sharing my knowledge in accessibiltiy, I set about reviewing our current state. Of course there were many quick wins in terms of improved alt text and careful use of aria labels to better describe content to vision impaired user. Some work required a bit more effort such as determing the ideal tabbing order, writing closed captions and defining important landmarks.

Design

A majority of the design work consisted of improved language in describing elements on the page. I also provided guidance in terms of page flow, so when a user relies on keyboard control and not a mouse, they are able to navigate in a smooth and logical order. I again referenced the W3C material to help me propose solutions directly to our development team. We're now in a strong position to enable more guests to visit our site!