Making Your Wine Website Accessible Isn’t Just About Compliance — It’s About Good Business

When it comes to incorporating accessibility standards onto your wine brand’s website, it should be both.

You need to incorporate accessibility standards into your wine brand’s website to avoid legal penalties. But you should want to not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because it makes for a better user experience for everyone.

ADA compliance on a website is something that few wine brands know about until it’s too late (read: they’re hit with a lawsuit). But it’s essential to do so if you want to provide every single one of your customers with the same great online experience regardless of their physical capabilities.

Not complying with ADA requirements could also affect your bottom line. After all, if a customer can’t easily use your website, how are they supposed to buy your wine?

If you know your website lacks accessibility standards, or if you’ve never heard of accessibility before, no need to panic. Once you learn some basics, you’ll be confident in what you can improve.

You don’t have to be a developer to understand the four fundamental accessibility elements your site needs to have. Accessibility means a lot of different things depending on a user’s capabilities. It’s not only about your oft thought of visual or hearing impairments. It includes things like motor skills and color blindness, too.

To make sure you’re giving all your users the same great web experience, there are four bare minimum requirements your site should integrate.

1. Descriptive text. It’s happened to you: An image doesn’t load on a website and there’s no descriptive text to tell you what it is. Frustrating, right? Descriptive text solves that problem and allows a screen reader to tell the user what’s there. The more descriptive, the better, because it will give your customer a better understanding of what you’re offering on your website.

2. Form labels. If a user can’t read what’s in a form, or a screen reader can’t pick up on what’s there, that means you’re losing out on receiving important information — names, email addresses, and credit card numbers. A screen reader is a software program that reads everything in the code to interpret what’s on the screen for someone who is visually impaired. Every form on your site should have clear form labels and a clear description.

3. Keyboard navigation. People with impaired motor skills depend on robust keyboard navigation elements (like tabbing or using the spacebar) to get around a website. Some of your users can’t use a computer mouse at all, meaning their keyboard is their only tool. How keyboard friendly is your website?

4. Color contrast. Paying attention to your color contrast is vital for your customers with visual disabilities. If they can’t read any text or see any details because the contrast is too bright, not dark enough, or otherwise difficult to decipher, you’re losing out on their conversion.

Checking your website to see if it’s accessibility-friendly is important and easy. There are multiple online tools that will assess your wine website’s accessibility and let you know what you need to fix.

You can download the WAVE evaluation tool as a Google Chrome plug-in to scan your website and give you quick feedback on what to fix. And tools like AccessiBe are an extra safeguard that monitors your website’s compliance.

You’re not off the hook by using these tools, however. You need to physically test your site like you were a person with disabilities — including going through the motions that a person with visual and/or hearing impairments would have to go through. Better still is inviting a user with disabilities to test for you and give you feedback.

To test the site yourself, install the screen reader and try to use the site without a mouse. Or try to use your site with your eyes closed with the help of the screen reader. Make sure everything — down to the exact color of your t-shirts — is labeled as descriptively as possible.

If your website comes up short in its accessibility score, no need to worry. Involve a trusted designer to retrofit your website for maximum usability. And if you’re building your website from scratch, incorporating accessibility from the get-go is the way to go.

You don’t bat an eye when you see a ramp from a parking lot leading up to a building. And it’s expected that Netflix includes closed captioning on shows and movies.

It’s no different with your wine brand’s website: It needs to be accessible for all to use.

You have customers with disabilities who enjoy drinking your wine — whether they’re experiencing blindness, have impaired motor skills, or are simply getting used to the pesky side effects of aging. They deserve to have the same experience on your website as everyone else.

If they’re not able to navigate your website, they won’t be able to buy your wine — leaving you both disappointed.

And although you believe that everyone should be afforded the same online experience, we understand if you’re wary of compromising your web design’s aesthetics for the sake of compliance. Translating your brand artfully to a digital medium is hard enough, let alone complying with certain ADA standards like color contrast and font size.

But it’s not as disruptive to your design as you may think, especially if your web designer incorporates it from the get-go.

Describing your images in great detail not only helps your users with visual impairments know what’s on their screen. It also pleases the Google gods.

You see, the more ADA compliant your website, the more SEO friendly it is. Because anything a screen reader can read, Google can read.

So, you’re not just posting a picture of a bottle of wine, are you?

You’re posting a picture of a bottle of your finest Cabernet Sauvignon, its sleek bottle framed by two empty wine glasses waiting to be filled. In the background are the rolling hills of your vineyard in Napa/the Texas Hill Country/Northern Virginia.

That’s something Google will pick up and favor whenever someone searches those keywords — potentially putting your wine website at the front of the pack.

Accessibility standards are always evolving. What’s true this year may be expanded upon next year. It’s best to have a trusted designer on hand to ensure your website is up to date and providing every visitor with a memorable experience.

The more intentionally designed for everyone your website is, the better. Because it’s simple. When you don’t alienate customers, your sales and brand loyalty go up. And that’s something both necessary and desirable.