Shopify accessibility checker

Where Shopify accessibility issues come from

In the WebAIM Million 2026, home pages built on Shopify averaged 75.1 detected errors, against 56.1 across all pages tested. WebAIM notes that extra errors can’t always be attributed to the technology itself: much of what a store shows comes from its theme, its apps and its product content.

• The theme. Themes in the Shopify Theme Store must meet accessibility requirements, such as keyboard access to every part of the page (including dropdown menus), a visible focus state, labels on form inputs and a minimum average Lighthouse accessibility score of 90. Themes from elsewhere may not, and your own edits to a theme can undo what it got right.
• Apps. Apps add reviews, pop-ups, chat, upsells and banners through app blocks and app embeds. Each one adds markup you didn’t write. If a scan points at an element you don’t recognize, check your apps first.
• Product media and content. Every product image needs alt text, and product descriptions pasted from elsewhere often bring their own heading levels and colors.
• Slideshows. Shopify’s own guidance says slideshows shouldn’t autoplay, or need a way to pause.

Where to fix common issues in Shopify

Product image alt text

In the admin, go to Products, open a product, click an image or video to open Preview media, then Add alt text and Save alt text. Shopify allows 512 characters and recommends 125 or fewer.

Theme images

For images in sections such as banners: Online Store > Themes > Edit theme, select the section, open the image’s settings and type the alt text, then save.

Colors and contrast

In the theme editor, open Theme settings > Colors and edit the color schemes (newer themes such as Horizon use palettes). Shopify’s accessibility guidance asks for 4.5:1 contrast for body and button text and 3:1 for large headings, input borders and icons. The editor doesn’t check this for you, so check every scheme a section uses.

Apps that add issues

To find out whether an app is the cause, open Edit theme, go to App embeds in the sidebar, turn the suspect app off, save, and scan the page again. Then ask the app developer for a fix, or look for an alternative.

Headings, links and focus

Shopify’s guidance: use headings in order without skipping levels, make text links distinguishable by more than color, open links in the same tab, and don’t remove focus styles. These live in the theme code and in your content.

What Perceivly adds

One scan checks one page. With an account, Perceivly crawls your store on a schedule, including product and collection pages, so issues from a new app, a theme update or new products are caught. Nothing is installed in your store. See monitoring and, if you sell in the EU, the European Accessibility Act, which covers e-commerce.