Birdy Grey Accessibility Audit
Web Accessibility Remediation for Birdy Grey website to make it conforms with the WCAG technical standards and comply with the ADA.
This Birdy Grey accessibility audit and WCAG 2.1 AA remediation covered a store built for one of the most coordination-heavy purchases online. Birdy Grey is a United States direct-to-consumer brand known for affordable bridesmaid dresses, sold in a wide range of colours and sizes, with swatches, accessories and matching pieces for a whole wedding party.
Shopping here is rarely a single click: a customer compares colours, orders swatches, checks sizes across several people and returns to buy as a group. Every one of those steps relies on interactive controls — variant pickers, swatch selectors, cart and checkout — and for a shopper using a screen reader or a keyboard, the accessibility of those controls decides whether they can dress their bridal party at all.
Table of Contents
Why accessibility is critical for an online store
E-commerce is one of the most active areas of United States web-accessibility law. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title III, an online store is treated as a place of public accommodation, and courts and settlements have repeatedly pointed to WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the working standard for an accessible shop. For a fashion retailer the stakes are practical too: a colour or size picker that is invisible to a screen reader, or a checkout that traps keyboard focus, turns away a customer — often a disabled shopper or bridesmaid who simply wanted to order a dress.
Scope and standard
Our Birdy Grey accessibility audit assessed the store against WCAG 2.1 Level AA, mapped to ADA Title III, across the journeys that matter for a fashion retailer: the product and colour pages, the variant and size pickers, swatch ordering, the cart and checkout, the account area, and search and filtering.
How we ran the Birdy Grey accessibility audit
- Screen-reader testing with JAWS and NVDA on Windows, VoiceOver on macOS and iOS, and TalkBack on Android
- Automated audits with Deque axe, Google Lighthouse and WAVE
- Keyboard-only operation of every step, with attention to focus order and a clearly visible focus indicator
- Colour-contrast analysis, plus 400% zoom and reflow testing for low-vision users
What accessibility means on each part of the store
Because Birdy Grey is built around choosing and buying rather than reading, our Birdy Grey accessibility audit focused on the controls a fashion store depends on:
- Colour and size pickers need names and states that assistive technology can read, so a screen-reader user knows which option is selected, not just which one looks highlighted.
- Product images and swatches need meaningful alternative text, since colour is the entire point of the choice and cannot be conveyed by sight alone.
- The cart and checkout need labelled fields, announced errors and a focus order that never traps the keyboard, because this is where the order is completed.
- Search and filtering need operable controls and results announced to assistive technology, so a shopper can narrow by colour or size without a mouse.
- The account and order pages need accessible controls, sufficient colour contrast, visible focus and clean reflow at high zoom.
Outcome
This Birdy Grey accessibility audit, combining manual and automated testing with remediation, brought the store’s product options, swatches, cart and checkout into line with WCAG 2.1 AA and ADA Title III expectations, so a shopper using a screen reader or a keyboard can compare colours, order swatches and dress a whole party without barriers. Because each journey ends in a real order, every fix was verified with assistive technology rather than assumed from an automated pass.