This is not a paid endorsement! A few weeks ago, I communicated with Thor R. Mikelic of SheVibe about their site’s accessibility features. I was very pleased with Thor’s response, which is pasted below with permission. Thank you, SheVibe, for your commitment to accessibility!

On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 1:57 PM, Thor R. Mikelic  wrote:

Hi Cassandra,

We began building the new SheVibe.com in 2015. We selected Big Commerce as our development platform based on their commitment to Web Accessibility as well as numerous additional factors.

“At Bigcommerce, we recognize the impact that an accessible site has on our customer, the merchants, as well as their customers.  We are taking concrete steps towards building a more accessible site at multiple steps in the development cycle.  Design proposals are reviewed so that visuals meet at least WCAG AA requirements.  During development, engineers are encouraged to use alternate methods of navigation (keyboard only, screen readers) during testing, and code is reviewed so that markup is semantic and code provides enough data for these alternate experiences.  Finally, our quality engineers will test for accessibility concerns, and ensure that the final product can be used by an expanded audience.

As these software improvements are made, we can partner with merchants who have accessibility needs, and they in turn can sell to customers who do not access the internet in a traditional way.  The audience is expanded, and everyone wins.”

We have utilized the tools available to us while building the new site in the hopes that our content will be available to everyone. We are anticipating that additional improvements made during ongoing upgrades of the Big Commerce platform will stay in lock-step with technology improvements that will help us maintain our commitment to a better and more accessible experience for all.

As a small company our platform is not proprietary and we are forced to rely on the expertise and responsibility of our platform provider. We will continue to work with Big Commerce to ensure our commitment to accessibility is achieved.

Take care,

-Thor

Thor R. Mikelic

Partner,  SheVibe.com