Online shopping when you are a cookie monster
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Due to my dyslexia some of my online orders are really funky at times. I order the wrong thing, the wrong quantity, you name it. I ordered just recently my godson two pairs of the same shoes cuz I didn't realize otherwise.
Real conversation today in our household:
My partner (amused): you ordered the wrong cookies again
Me: No! I didn't get it wrong this time. They had pictures next to the products, I could see which one was the one we like
Him: Haha, sure.
Me: uuuurh.
Him later: oh look they have a cute note on the bill they didn't have the other ones
Vindication aside, this is a real issue for a lot of people. If you have an online shop here are some things I found help me:
1) Have pictures next to your products. Especially for similar sounding products. But don't forget to add alt text to the pictures as well!
2) Use appropriate spacing between your listings and fonts like sans-serif which make it easier for people to read. Real life example, a lot of restaurants use online (phone) menus these days instead of paper ones. Both my partner and I often struggle to read them even if zooming in. He is dyslexic too. There is a lot of goodness to online menus as well, especially for people who might be using assistive technology in order to read. Where possible, offer both and ensure the online one is properly accessible.
3) Use appropriate color contrast. The WCAG (web content accessibility guidelines) 2.1 recommends a minimum contrast of 4.5:1, but even better is 7:1.
4) Allow users to have a view of their online shopping basket in full window. Very often some websites have this tiny lateral panel thing which is impossible to read and you can't really tell its contents.
Here's to less cookie incidents for the cookie monsters of the world.