Is a store liable for its chat widget's barriers?

Yes, in practical terms. The widget is part of the store's public facing service. Vendor contracts should require conformance and fixes, but a shopper's complaint and a regulator's attention land on the store first.

What is the quickest chat widget check?

On a phone, go to checkout and see whether the bubble covers any checkout control, then open and close the panel using only a keyboard or switch device. Those two passes catch the failures that block purchases.

Should chat be removed from checkout pages?

Often, yes. Suppressing the widget during payment removes the overlap and focus risks entirely. Provide a clearly named alternative contact method in the checkout help section instead.

Does the chat button need more than an icon?

It needs an accessible name describing the action, such as chat with support. An unlabelled icon button is announced as just button, which tells a screen reader user nothing about what will happen.

Testing Target Size: The Small Buttons That Block Mobile Checkout

October 30, 2026

WCAG 2.2 added a minimum target size at AA. Icon buttons, quantity steppers, and close crosses in mobile checkout routinely fall under it. How to measure yours.

WCAG 2.2 added criterion 2.5.8, target size minimum, at AA: interactive targets should be at least 24 by 24 CSS pixels, or have enough spacing around them, with exceptions for inline links and a few other cases. It is a modest floor. Mobile checkout breaks it constantly.

Quantity steppers are the worst offenders, followed by the small cross that closes a cart drawer and the remove link under a line item. These are not decorative elements. They are the controls a customer with a tremor, or one hand occupied, or reduced dexterity has to hit accurately to complete a purchase.

Measure the real rendered size

Do not measure the design file. Measure the live page at a phone viewport, in the browser inspector, including the full clickable area rather than just the visible glyph. An X icon drawn at 12 pixels inside a button padded to 32 is fine. The same icon as a bare link at 14 pixels is a failure, and the difference is invisible until you inspect it.

Spacing can save a small target. Criterion 2.5.8 allows targets under 24 pixels if a 24 pixel circle around the centre does not overlap another target. Dense rows of small controls, size swatches packed edge to edge, filter chips in a tight grid, are where that spacing test gets failed.

The controls to check first

Start in the cart drawer: close, remove, quantity plus and minus. Then the checkout form: address suggestion list items, the show order summary toggle on mobile, discount apply, and any icon only buttons in the header, search and account especially. Each of those sits on a revenue critical path.

Then look at product pages. Swatches, thumbnail strips, accordion headers with small hit areas, and the sticky add to cart bar all concentrate small targets. A sticky bar that is tall enough is fine; the wishlist heart floating at its corner at 16 pixels is not.

Fix size, not just style

Enlarging the hit area rarely needs a redesign. Padding the button, rather than the icon, grows the target while the visual stays the same size. That is the standard fix and designers usually accept it once they see the visual does not change.

Record target size in your audit template from now on. Older audits done against WCAG 2.1 never tested it, because the criterion did not exist there. A store can hold a clean 2.1 report and still have a checkout full of 16 pixel targets.

Frequently asked questions

What is the minimum target size in WCAG 2.2?

Criterion 2.5.8 requires targets of at least 24 by 24 CSS pixels at AA, or sufficient spacing so a 24 pixel circle on the target does not overlap another target, with exceptions such as inline links in text.

Is 44 pixels required?

44 by 44 is the AAA criterion, 2.5.5, and it is also the size Apples design guidance recommends. It is a good target for primary controls, but the AA legal benchmark in WCAG 2.2 is 24 pixels.

Does the visible icon size count, or the clickable area?

The clickable area. A small icon inside a generously padded button passes, because the target is the button. Measure the rendered element in the browser, not the artwork.

Which controls fail most often?

Quantity steppers, cart drawer close and remove controls, icon only header buttons, packed swatches, and small links in dense rows. Start the audit there.