What AccessComply Checks and Fixes on a Shopify Store

AccessComply is a Shopify app that scans a store in four areas (accessibility, SEO, speed and AI shopping readiness) and fixes part of what it finds in your theme or your Shopify records after you approve each change. It saves the original first, so any change can be undone, and checks the page again afterwards. What it cannot fix safely, it lists for you with the change to make. This guide goes area by area: what the scan checks, what the app changes, and what stays with you.

Four areas, one scan

A scan opens the pages of your store the way a browser does, at a desktop width and a phone width, and checks each one. The free scan on this site covers up to 10 public pages with no account. The installed app covers up to 50 pages on Free and up to 150 on paid plans, or 400 with Shopify crawler access. Each area gets its own score and its own list, so a speed problem never hides behind an accessibility number.

Accessibility fixes go into the theme code

Accessibility is the deepest area. The scan runs automated checks against the WCAG 2.1 and 2.2 Level AA rules on every page it reaches and measures colours once the page has settled, so text caught part way through a scroll animation is not counted. Many of the barriers it finds live in theme code, and that is where the fix goes: a contrast rule scoped to the section the text sits in, a label on a form field, a skip link, the page language, heading levels, scroll padding that keeps keyboard focus clear of a sticky header. On Shield and Citadel it also drafts image descriptions and names for icon buttons and links with AI, for you to review.

Tap targets smaller than 24 by 24 pixels are reported with the change to make, not enlarged: growing one safely depends on its padding and layout. Captions, PDFs and anything inside another app’s widget stay with you, and the scan names the app. How AccessComply fixes accessibility issues in your theme covers each fix, and the accessibility topic collects the guides.

SEO: titles and descriptions from your own words

The SEO scan checks the basics that decide how a page appears in search: a title, a meta description, descriptions on images, a canonical tag, no stray noindex, structured data that parses, and internal links that work. After you approve, the app writes missing or badly sized titles and descriptions for products, collections and pages from their own names and text, never invented, through the same search listing fields you would edit in Shopify. The home page’s title and description live in Shopify’s Online Store preferences, and the finding says so.

Canonical tags, noindex, structured data and broken menu links are reported with the fix, because they are theme or settings decisions. Shopify SEO issues: what AccessComply finds and fixes has the detail, and the SEO topic the rest.

Speed: image tags in your theme

The speed check reads each page’s code for what slows it and times the page once in a lab browser. After you approve, it adds the missing width and height to images, marks the main image as the priority and stops it loading lazily, and makes images below the fold load lazily, where your theme writes the image tag itself. Themes that build images through Shopify’s image filters usually set these themselves.

App scripts, heavy pages and slow server responses are reported, not changed: the app that loads a script controls it. Shopify page speed: what AccessComply checks and fixes explains each check, and the speed topic has more.

AI shopping readiness: what assistants can read

AI assistants such as ChatGPT find Shopify products through the product data Shopify Catalog shares with them and through the discovery files every Shopify store serves. The installed app reads up to 100 of your most recently updated active products for the details assistants rely on: publication, an image, a product type or category, a vendor, a barcode, a description of at least 30 words, a title that says what the product is, and your store policies. It also checks the discovery files and whether your robots.txt turns assistants away.

After you approve, it sets the fields it can fill without guessing: a product type from the product’s own category, the vendor as your shop name, and the “hide from search engines” setting. If a custom template broke your discovery file, it can remove that template so Shopify’s own file comes back. Shopify AI shopping readiness covers every check, and the AI shopping topic the rest.

How every fix is made

The same five steps apply in every area.

1. You choose. A scan never changes anything by itself. You pick what to fix, and the approval covers only what you reviewed, for a short time.
2. The original is saved. Before a theme write, the app saves a copy of the whole theme; before a product or SEO field write, it saves the field’s previous value.
3. Each change is scoped. A colour rule stays inside the theme section the text was measured in, and a markup change goes into the one tag that renders the element, beside the theme’s own code. If two places could have rendered an element, the app hands the finding to you instead of guessing.
4. The page is checked again. After the change, the app scans the changed pages again, and a later full scan confirms it. A fix the recheck still finds is marked for you.
5. Restoring asks first. Any change can be undone from its saved original, and a restore always asks you, so a later edit of yours is never overwritten silently.

The how fixes work page describes the safety checks in more depth.

What each plan includes

Every paid plan starts with a 14 day free trial and is billed and cancelled through Shopify. See pricing for the full comparison.

What AccessComply does not do

• It is not a legal opinion or a guarantee of compliance. Automated checks find part of what WCAG covers; the W3C says no tool alone can determine whether a site meets accessibility standards. A person still needs to test with a keyboard and a screen reader.
• It is not a complete SEO suite. It does no keyword research, rank tracking or redirects.
• It does not report real shopper speed. Its speed check is a lab measurement, not field data from your visitors.
• It does not change checkout, your apps or headless storefronts. Fixes are written to an Online Store theme and to your Shopify records.

Sources

• W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, Evaluating Web Accessibility Overview.
• Shopify Help Center, Requirements for being included in Shopify Catalog.