Three quarters of the most visited web shops in Germany are not barrier-free. This is the result of a study presented on Wednesday by Google, the funding organization “Aktion Menschen” and the Pfennigparade Foundation in Berlin. Many people are affected by the sometimes massive hurdles in the online shops: In Germany, 7.8 million people have a recognized severe disability, including 351,000 people who are blind or have a visual impairment.
Christina Marx, spokeswoman for “Aktion Mensch”, said that people with disabilities are excluded from social participation due to the lack of digital accessibility. They use the internet intensively above average and are a particularly relevant group of online customers.
For the study, 78 particularly popular online shops were examined. 61 Sites could not be operated using the keyboard alone, which often presents an insurmountable hurdle for people with visual impairments. It is also problematic for the visually impaired if background colors and text colors are not clearly distinguishable from each other. Banners, which only annoy people without disabilities in case of doubt, ensure that the website becomes unusable for the visually impaired because the content cannot be closed. This includes many cookie banners.
The study revealed that of the 78 online shops examined, only twelve enable barrier-free navigation. In no less than 15 portals, users were able to easily change the text size, for example with a finger-spreading gesture (“pinch-to-zoom”) on a smartphone, in order to make the website easier to read.
Isabelle Joswig, inclusion officer at Google Germany, pointed out that accessibility is not only helpful for people with disabilities. “It is an important quality feature of a website.” Companies could use it to tap into new customer groups who appreciate ease of use and understandable content – regardless of impairment.
At the press conference, the organizations pointed out that according to the EU directive on digital accessibility, online trade must be barrier-free in two years. The directive obliges the member states to make all online trade barrier-free for consumers. In Germany, the directive is implemented by the Accessibility Strengthening Act (BFSG). According to this, companies must check their products and services for digital accessibility and adapt them to the legal requirements. (dpa)