ADA COMPLIANCE

Snow Commerce, Inc. is committed to ADA compliance and providing a user-friendly website for all users.  The actions and policies defined in this memo have been taken to achieve this goal. Snow Commerce, Inc. has taken these actions with urgency for immediate conformance as well as a long-term perspective in complying to these principles going forward.

We aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level.

The overall solution consists of the following and is described in detail in this document.

  1. Accessibility via customer service
  2. Accessibility notifications and awareness on the website
  3. Accessibility audit tools and direct coding enhancements using industry standard tests provided by Google Lighthouse, WAVE and PowerMapper. 

1 - Customer Service

First and foremost, Snow Commerce, Inc. has trained all customer service representatives on assisting any web shopper with disabilities. Snow Commerce, Inc. provides three methods of contacting customer service for assistance clearly outlined on the contact us page and other notable and convenient areas on the site: 

  • Email 
  • Mailing address
  • Contact Form

An example of our contact us information is provided here: [CONTACT US PAGE]

Furthermore, each page of the website prominently displays the contact page link in clear readable text in large font with proper HTML for screen reader programs.

All customer service interactions are recorded and saved for at least 3 years.  Customer service is also trained on escalating any customer service issue to management staff for immediate follow up and corrective action.  This is especially pertinent to ADA compliance concerns. Snow Commerce, Inc. has not received any ADA compliance concerns to date directly from customers. 

2 - Accessibility Notifications

It is important to Snow Commerce, Inc. that all customers are informed of our commitment to ADA compliance and therefore we provide an Accessibility Statement in our footer of all pages under the Customer Service section.

3 - Accessibility Audit Tools and Direct Code Enhancements

Snow Commerce, Inc. utilizes 3rd party auditing tools on a consistent basis to detect and resolve compliance issues.  These reports are conducted using the following tools:

a.) Google Lighthouse - this report identifies a subset of accessibility issues and our objective is to maintain in the green and over 90%.

  1. For more information on Lighthouse visit: https://developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse

b.) WAVE - Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool
WAVE is helpful in identifying errors in linking on the site and any identified errors are being resolved.

  1. For more information about WAVE, please visit https://wave.webaim.org/

c.) PowerMapper.com - this manual test is helpful in detecting any issues that should also be resolved directly in the code of the website or during the creative process of updating the site with new promotional graphics and product images.