European Accessibility Act – How it affects Your e-Commerce?

According to WHO (World Health Organization) data, 1.3 billion people live with disabilities. That’s 16% of the population. Unfortunately, many places in the digital space (including e-Commerce sites) are still not adapted to meet the needs of these individuals. The European Union has decided to change this by enacting the European Accessibility Act. What changes does this document introduce? When do its regulations come into effect? And how will this impact your e-business?

This article deals with Polish regulations regarding accessibility. Even though EAA is the European Union document, regulations that implement it in the local legal system vary depending on the country. If you are acting outside Poland, remember to thoroughly check local regulations.

Why Was the European Accessibility Act Enacted?

In 2018, the Polish government adopted the Accessibility Plus Program, which aimed to ensure unrestricted access to goods and services and the ability to participate fully in social life for people with special needs (including the elderly and people with disabilities). This document mainly addressed adapting public spaces, architecture, transportation, and products to the needs of all citizens, without exception. However, this document only applies to public entities. It is now time to extend the obligations related to ensuring accessibility to non-public entities, i.e., private companies and various types of corporations. Thus, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) was created.

What Is the Purpose of the Accessibility Act?

Both the Accessibility Plus Program and the European Accessibility Act have one main goal: to facilitate access to products and services for as many people as possible, regardless of their abilities or special needs. The idea is to ensure that everyone has the same opportunity to purchase and use all products and services, whether they are fully able-bodied, visually impaired, elderly, hearing impaired, or have mobility issues.

As we mentioned before, over 1,3 billion people live with disabilities. This means that over 16% of the population struggles with access to products and services offered in this country. The European Accessibility Act aims to address this problem. At least in Europe.

What Does the Accessibility Act Change?

The Act of April 26, 2024, on ensuring the accessibility of certain products and services by economic operators (Journal of Laws 2024, item 731), which introduces the European Accessibility Directive into Polish law, amends as many as 10 other acts, including the Act of July 19, 2019, on ensuring accessibility for persons with special needs, the Act of August 5, 2015, on handling complaints by financial market entities, and the Act of August 19, 2011, on payment services. It seems that the Accessibility Act changes quite a lot.

Who Does the European Accessibility Act Affect?

The obligations to ensure accessibility imposed by the Act of April 26, 2024, apply to all companies that offer products and services listed in the Directive, throughout the entire supply chain. Therefore, all manufacturers and distributors, importers, and service providers that act in Poland will have to comply with these regulations.

This document regulates issues related to the accessibility of product information (including descriptions, user manuals, or installation instructions), the products themselves (including interfaces), and various types of services.

What Products Are Covered by the EAA Requirements?

This EU directive covers four product categories:

– Computer hardware and operating systems,

– Payment terminals and self-service terminals, ATMs, ticket machines, and those used for check-in, e.g., at airports,

– Telecommunications devices (including our smartphones) and those that provide access to audiovisual services (e.g., televisions),

– e-Books.

As you can see, the Accessibility Act mainly concerns technological products.

What Services Are Covered by the EAA?

The Accessibility Directive requirements apply to:

– Services providing access to audiovisual media services,

– Passenger transport services (road, air, rail, and water),

– Retail banking services,

– Services related to the distribution of electronic books,

– e-Commerce services.

And here we finally come to our beloved e-Commerce. The Accessibility Act imposes certain obligations on online stores. Although its provisions are not yet in effect, it is worth ensuring that your sales platform complies with this European Act.

Digital Accessibility in Online Stores

Until now, functionalities that increase the accessibility of sales platforms, such as the ability to increase contrast, an audio version of the content on the site, or the option to change the font size, were treated more as a courtesy to users rather than a necessary facilitation in using the online store. The European Accessibility Act changes this approach. From the moment this document comes into effect, all e-Commerces will be obliged to ensure digital accessibility on their platforms. If you do not adapt your store to these regulations, you will be fined. And you certainly wouldn’t want that.

Unfortunately, most e-Commerces lag in terms of accessibility, and users with disabilities or special needs still face many difficulties when shopping online. This works to the detriment of both these users and the online store itself. According to the Click Away Pound study, as many as 71% of people with disabilities who encountered an inaccessible shopping platform left it in search of a more user-friendly e-store. The same report also indicates that 82% of people are willing to spend significantly more money on e-Commerces that ensure accessibility. This means that if your online store does not meet the needs of the elderly and disabled, you are losing customers and quite a bit of money in the process. Not to mention the financial penalties you may receive for not meeting the EAA requirements.

What can you do to make your store accessible to users with special needs and comply with the Accessibility Act?

What Obligations Does the European Accessibility Act Impose on Online Stores?

There are quite a few. Like the Accessibility Plus Program, the EAA in terms of digital accessibility is based on the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines).

Perceivability

This principle mainly concerns:

– Logical content structure (marked headings, lists, etc.),

– Text alternatives for non-text content,

– Transcriptions for audio and video materials,

– Subtitles and audio descriptions for videos,

– Properly marked functionalities (forms, tables, etc.) so that the relationships between content are correctly defined,

– Distinctions (not only color-based),

– Text color (mainly its contrast with the background),

– Readability and visibility of content when text size is increased by 200%,

– Not publishing images of text,

– Responsiveness of the site.

Operability

You will achieve this by ensuring that your store:

– Can be navigated using only a keyboard,

– Has options to pause and stop moving content,

– Does not contain flashing graphics and text,

– Has headers and labels that clearly describe forms,

– Includes links that allow users to skip to specific content (e.g., “skip to content” links),

– Has understandable page titles,

– Contains links whose content clearly indicates where they lead,

– Has good visibility of elements selected using the keyboard (focus),

– Minimizes the number of complex gestures on touch screens,

– Allows for the change and deactivation of keyboard shortcuts.

Understandability

This concerns the ease of understanding content in your store, which you can ensure by:

– Writing in simple language (without industry jargon and unnecessary words),

– Avoiding difficult words and phrases or explaining them understandably,

– Expanding abbreviations and acronyms,

– Specifying in the page code the language in which the content is presented,

– Ensuring consistent appearance and operation of elements across all subpages (e.g., a consistent button style),

– Providing visible and understandable form labels,

– Publishing understandable error messages in forms and suggestions on how to correct them.

Robustness

You will achieve this by:

– Proper coding, compliant with HTML standards,

– Providing users using assistive technologies with information about status or state,

– Allowing assistive technologies to report appearing messages or modal windows.

In practice, this means that e-Commerce owners and managers, when creating their sales platforms, should also think about users who, for example, are blind but want to know what is in a photo; and cannot use a mouse and navigate the Internet using only a keyboard; enlarge page views to see content better; or change browser settings so that the text on the page is visible to them.

So what exactly do you need to do to make your online store accessible (not just digitally) and comply with the European Accessibility Act?

Ensure Multisensory Experience in Your Sales Platform

According to EAA regulations, all information posted in your online store must be accessible through more than one sensory channel. This means that all written content, such as product descriptions, category trees, or product names, must also be made available in audio form. Product photos and banners will need to have captions and properly filled alt tags, allowing blind or visually impaired people to know exactly what is in the photo. Also, don’t forget about the video files published in your store. They will also need to be well-described and must include subtitles (if they contain spoken content).

Providing multisensory experiences in e-Commerce is not a difficult task, but it can be time-consuming. Properly describing graphics and videos or preparing the site for tools that “read” content in audio form may take some time. Start today so that by next year, when the Accessibility Act comes into effect, everything in your e-store is in place.

Offer Multiple Ways to Contact Your Support

This requirement is somewhat derived from the multisensory obligation imposed by the European Accessibility Directive.

If, so far, the only form of contact with your customer service has been a form on your website, after the EAA provisions come into effect, you will need to implement at least one additional solution – telephone contact. However, this is not the only option.

According to the Accessibility Act, you must provide your users with contact through at least two senses. So if you currently only offer written contact, you will need to guarantee your customer’s voice contact. A phone seems like the simplest solution. However, you might also consider a voice chat.

Remember that some people navigate the Internet and websites using only a keyboard. You must adapt your contact forms and chats so that a person who is not using a mouse can easily fill them out and send them.

Ensure the Readability of the Content

This mainly concerns the size and type of fonts. But not only. If you want your store to comply with EAA requirements, the content in your online store must be readable. This means that the text must be appropriately large, the font not too fancy, and the color of the content must be clearly visible. Unfortunately, at this moment, there are no specific guidelines in this regard. However, we can guess that tiny text about data processing, written in “four” (4 points) and in gray, will not pass. All content we previously wanted to “hide” will need to be made visible again so that even elderly and visually impaired people can easily read it. And remember to maintain the appropriate contrast. This also significantly impacts the readability of texts on the site.

Provide Instructions in Your Store

It may seem that the manufacturer should be responsible for product instructions (including their multisensory accessibility). And they are. The manufacturer has to prepare appropriate usage and installation guides for products. As you can guess, they must be accessible through multiple sensory channels.

However, as the owner or manager of an e-Commerce store, you should ensure that your customers can always access these instructions. For example, you can link the manufacturer’s page in your product card where users can find an extended version of the instructions from the packaging or its audio version. You can also send such pages in the order confirmation email. This way, you will ensure that all your customers, regardless of age or disability, have access to complete information about the products you sell. And at the same time, you will protect your business from potential fines resulting from EAA regulations.

Adjust Your Assortment to People with Disabilities

If you sell any products listed at the beginning of this article, there is a good chance that you will need to expand your product catalog. What exactly does this mean?

The European Accessibility Act obliges online retailers to ensure equal opportunities for using purchased products for everyone, regardless of their abilities or age. This means that if you sell a PC in your e-Commerce, you must also have accessories needed for comfortable use by people with disabilities. This can be, for example, a keyboard with the Braille alphabet, allowing a blind person to use the computer purchased from you easily.

Regarding products, the EAA imposes many more obligations on manufacturers who will need to adapt their products to the needs of people with disabilities.

However, as an e-Commerce owner or manager, you must consider whether your store has the necessary assortment to meet the needs of the elderly or people with special needs. If not, it is worth looking into this topic now. Finding new suppliers and products tailored to the needs of people with disabilities may take some time. Therefore, start thinking about expanding your product catalog today.

What Are the Consequences of Non-Compliance?

Of course, financial penalties. Unfortunately, at this moment, we do not know how severe these amounts will be. In the coming year, we can expect new regulations to clarify this issue.

However, as in life, real amounts will appear with the first imposed fines. Therefore, it is better to be cautious and well-prepared for the upcoming changes in your online store.

An Online Store Accessible to EVERYONE

As you can see, the European Accessibility Act changes quite a lot in e-commerce. And it will require a lot of work from you. Especially if, until now, accessibility issues (including digital accessibility) have not been on your priority list.

Although the EAA regulations will only come into effect on June 28, 2025, it is worth starting work on increasing your business’s accessibility now. From a technical point of view, implementing greater contrast on the sales platform, adding phone contact, or improving fonts is relatively easy. Unfortunately, preparing the site for reading devices and adding descriptions of photos and videos may take some time. Not to mention negotiations related to ensuring the appropriate assortment for the store. Therefore, start today to ensure the accessibility of your e-Commerce.