Accessibility-First Checkout Redesign Lifted Conversions for Cartory by 15%

Design · 6 min read

Cartory, an early-stage ecommerce platform, noticed disputed transactions and abandoned carts concentrated at their payment step. An audit revealed common accessibility issues: insufficient label clarity, poor focus order, and fragile inline validation that erased user input. The product team decided to treat accessibility improvements as conversion optimization, not compliance theater.

Design changes included expanded input labels, persistent contextual help for card and address fields, improved keyboard focus states, and an inline validation model that suggested fixes without clearing user-entered data. They added a low-contrast toggle for reduced-motion and implemented ARIA live regions to announce processing states to screen readers. Everyone on the team participated in testing sessions with screen reader users.

After rollout, Cartory reported a 15 percent lift in completed checkouts and a 28 percent drop in payment-related support tickets. Conversion gains were most pronounced on older mobile devices and for locales with fragmented delivery addresses. The case demonstrates that accessibility improvements can directly impact revenue while improving experience for a broad set of users.