Shopify ADA compliance: find and fix accessibility issues
Search for a Shopify accessibility app when the theme looks finished and customers still get stuck. AltGrade scans the published store and shows the fix in the theme editor or the product admin. You change the page. Nothing sits on top of it.
What people mean by Shopify ADA compliance
Merchants type 'Shopify ADA compliance' after a partner, a marketplace, or a letter mentions the Americans with Disabilities Act. The phrase is a search. It is not a switch in Shopify admin, and a scan does not flip it. This is general information, not legal advice.
What you can ship this week is concrete. Name the cart button. Replace file-name alt text. Darken the sale price. Give the newsletter field a label. Those changes live in Online Store, in the product, and in the theme. A Shopify accessibility app that only draws a toolbar over the theme leaves every one of them in place.
Where Shopify themes fail
Product media is first. On upload, Shopify often copies the file name into the alt field. Open the product, select the image, and write the product name plus the variant, such as the colour. Decorative icons in the header can stay empty. A photo inside the product link cannot.
Colours live in the theme editor. Check body text, sale prices, button labels, and the announcement bar, which often sits in pale type on a photograph. Aim for 4.5:1 on normal text. Icon buttons for Cart, Menu and Search need a name. Visually hidden text or an aria-label that matches the visible icon is enough. An empty button is announced as nothing.
Predictive search, age gates and popups are the other cluster. The field needs a label, not only a placeholder. The dialog needs a close control and it must release focus on Escape. Slideshows that move on their own need a pause control, or autoplay turned off. A sticky header needs scroll-padding so the focused link is not trapped underneath it.
Find the issues on the live theme
Scan the public shop, on your domain or the myshopify.com address customers can open. Include the homepage, a collection, a product with options, the cart, and the start of checkout. The free scan covers up to 10 pages and shows the score plus the top five groups.
Then use the keyboard. Tab from the top. The first stop should offer a way past the menu. Every option and the add-to-cart control should be a button or a link, not a div with a click handler. Mute product video and confirm captions if someone is speaking a size or a code.
Fix it in the theme, then rescan
Online Store, Themes, Customize is where colours and many section headings live. Product, Media is the alt text. The html language and the skip link belong in theme.liquid if a custom layout removed them. Checkout's own fields already carry labels. Custom sections you added above the fold still need theirs.
AltGrade writes those steps next to the finding, for the platform it detected. The £49 audit covers up to 50 pages, a PDF, and a statement draft. Monitoring from £19 a month rescans and emails you when a new critical issue appears after a theme publish. No tax is added. You do not install an overlay.
Questions
Is AltGrade a Shopify accessibility app?
It scans a Shopify store and maps each issue to the theme editor or the product admin. You fix the shop. It does not inject a widget into the theme.
Will this settle an ADA claim for my Shopify store?
No. You get the issues and the steps. A lawyer answers questions about the ADA.
Does it edit the theme for me?
No. The report tells you which screen to open. You or your developer make the change, then you rescan.
What does the scan miss?
Automated scans cannot catch every WCAG issue. Check that alt text matches the photo and that checkout still makes sense with a screen reader.