Web Accessibility Supporting Diversity Inclusion and Effective Internet Communication in e-commerce, for Sustainable Social Development

This study details the problems with web accessibility that Indian users with disabilities have with popular e-commerce platforms. According to the ‘‘Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities Government websites must adhere to WCAG 2.1 standards however, private websites are exempt from these requirements. Since, barrier-free access to Internet communications technology is crucial for these users to achieve economic independence, so the researchers chose ease of access to e-commerce platforms as one of the main paths to this goal. Along with the manual testing by a researcher who is visually challenged, the top 10 E-Commerce websites in India were examined for online accessibility issues using the axe Dev tools. It was discovered that these websites have crucial and serious web accessibility problems, which make users frustrated when using the websites and lead to their lack of engagement. The researchers would want to underline the importance of web accessibility at this point and would advise web designers to take the WCAG standards into consideration at the planning stage rather than as a corrective measure. The time has come for developing countries like India to take into account this aspect of web accessibility for the economic freedom of India’s users who are differently abled, as the United Nations has already identified ‘‘Access to ICT’’ as one of the important agenda items for the social development of persons with disabilities in its 77
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General Assembly dated 20
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July 2022.