Problem Statement
KingHost, a Brazilian web hosting company, had recently undergone a visual identity redesign, leading to a complete revamp of its website. With inclusion and diversity as key pillars of its culture, I identified this moment of design transformation as an opportunity to evaluate the accessibility of the web hosting purchase flow on KingHost’s website.
This analysis would provide valuable insights into how KingHost could further improve inclusivity and accessibility, ensuring that all customers—regardless of ability—could seamlessly navigate and complete a purchase.
Discovery Process
The first step was to map the customer journey to complete a web hosting purchase. This helped identify the key pages that needed to be reviewed from an accessibility perspective.
The accessibility evaluation focused on two key testing methods:
✔️ Keyboard navigation and screen reader testing – Simulating the experience of users with low or no vision to assess usability barriers.
✔️ Automated code analysis – Using tools to inspect how well the website adhered to accessibility guidelines.
To document and guide the analysis, I used a Heuristic Accessibility Evaluation spreadsheet, based on Nielsen’s Usability Heuristics and developed by Marcelo Sales, from the Brazilian organization "Tudo é Acessibilidade." Each heuristic was reviewed and applied to every page involved in the purchase flow.
Additionally, each page was tested using Access Monitor, an evaluation tool provided by the Government of Portugal. This tool analyzed the HTML code against WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) standards, assigning scores and compliance levels to assess how well the pages met accessibility requirements.
Outcome & Impact
By combining both manual and automated evaluations, the KingHost purchase flow was classified as partially accessible. The analysis revealed several key improvement areas, including:
✔️ Navigation errors that affected keyboard users.
✔️ Button functionality issues impacting accessibility.
✔️ Color contrast adjustments to enhance readability.
These recommendations were documented and handed over to the responsible teams, who added them to the backlog for future website and checkout flow improvements. This initiative contributed to making KingHost’s platform more inclusive and accessible for all users.