Shopify and accessibility: where each error is fixed without touching the theme
Product photos, buttons, colours, forms, language: the exact Shopify admin menu where each accessibility failure is fixed, and what does need code.
· Rampa
Shopify stores show up in U.S. accessibility lawsuits more than any other platform, not because Shopify is worse but because there are so many and almost all share the same failure: hundreds of product photos without a description. The good news is that most of what a scan reports is fixed from the admin, no developer needed.
Product photos without a description (alt text)
Products → open the product → Media → click the photo → "Add alt text". One sentence per photo: "Blue running shoe, side view". For collection and theme images: Online Store → Themes → Customize → click the section → every image has its own alt text field.
Low contrast
Online Store → Themes → Customize → Theme settings → Colors. Shopify themes (Dawn and family) define "color schemes"; raise the contrast of secondary text, struck-through prices and captions. Target: 4.5:1 for normal text.
Buttons and icons without a name
The cart icon, the search magnifier, the carousel arrows. Current themes name them; old or third-party themes often do not. Customize → Header usually has an option to show text next to the icon. If not, it is theme code (see below).
Form fields
Shopify's contact form has visible labels by default. The problem usually comes from form and newsletter apps: open the app and turn on "show label" for every field; placeholder text does not count.
Store language
Settings → Languages. The default language is what the code declares; if your store is in Spanish and the default is English, change it.
Every page's title
Products, collections and pages have the "Page title" field under "Search engine listing", at the very bottom. Without it, the browser tab says the store name and nothing else.
Carousels and videos that start on their own
Customize → the slideshow section → turn off "autoplay" or turn on the controls. Product videos: Shopify lets you upload captions in Media → the video.
What does need the theme
Discount pop-ups from apps that trap the keyboard, dropdown menus that do not open with Tab, "add to cart" buttons whose text is inside an image. For those you edit the theme code (Themes → … → Edit code) or ask the app vendor to fix it. With the corrected HTML in hand the change takes minutes; without it, it is guesswork.
About accessibility apps in the Shopify app store
There are dozens of apps that add a floating button and promise compliance. None of them changes your theme: your photos are still undescribed. Before installing one, read the overlay comparison: in 2025 the FTC fined a vendor for promising exactly that.