Consumer Behavior

The Online Apparel Shopping Experience of Blind Consumers

---

Abstract

Online shopping is about experiences (Rose et al., 2011). H&M, J. Crew, Urban Outfitters, Vera Wang and several other apparel retailers were sued due to navigation menus not granting equal opportunities to those with physical or mental impairments.Eleven interviews were employed to understand the current online apparel shopping experience of totally blind consumers. As a result of the analysis From Our Heart to Yours reveals the impact the website’s attributes have on participants and Behind the Scenes highlight interactions with the website infrastructure from finding the right browser that pairs well with their screen reader, to retrieving and correctly entering coupon codes during the checkout process. Peter Morville’s (2004) UXhoney comb model was used to discuss the totally blind participants online shopping experience and recommendations were provided using Jesse James Garrett’s (2003) five elements of UX to improve their online shopping experience.

Keywords: User Experience, Customer Experience, Blind, E-commerce, Human-Computer Interaction

How to Cite:

Williams, J. & Rothenberg, L., (2022) “The Online Apparel Shopping Experience of Blind Consumers”, International Textile and Apparel Association Annual Conference Proceedings 78(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/itaa.13672