Stripe is an online payment processing platform. It calls itself the “financial infrastructure for the Internet,” Many companies, from small to large, use it to accept online or mobile payments. Their website claims that 90 percent of U.S. adults have bought from businesses that use Stripe.
With all that use, it’s important to ask whether or not Stripe is accessible. To find out, let’s look at their website, mobile app, and subscriber emails to determine whether or not Stripe is accessible.
Stripe has focused on improving their contrast. Color contrast is important because it helps users with low vision or vision disabilities navigate a website and read the content. Stripe has made color accessibility a priority, updating their color systems in 2019 to reflect their commitment to accessibility.
Most of their site is black-on-white, meaning black text on a white background, which has good contrast and is accessible. Where it is not black-on-white, it is white-on-blue, another good choice in high contrast. However, the very top of their website has cycling color graphics behind the header. At times, this makes the header difficult to read. This portion of the website falls short on accessibility, but the rest of their website is still color accessible.
Their website is set up for keyboard navigation. This means a user can navigate through the website without the need for a mouse, which is highly accessible. Web navigation should still be accessible to individuals who cannot use a mouse.
However, keyboard navigation brought me to their images – specifically to their graphs. They are not obviously links. I only realized they were links when I tabbed through them. They become visible only through hovering and are otherwise white on a white background. That is not accessible at all. Links should be visible, especially for users with low vision or cognitive disabilities.
The layout of their website is good. It flows naturally, and finding your place on the site is easy. This is important for people using screen readers and is WCAG compliant. Except for the poor links on graphs, the site is readable and understandable, which is important for a variety of disabilities.
Stripe’s website is mostly accessible, with a few small things that should be changed.
Stripe’s commitment to color accessibility carries through to its mobile app. The app has a white background with black writing, which, as stated before, is a good choice for contrast. Additionally, the font and size choices Stripe used are very accessible. WCAG’s requirements for spacing in fonts are followed here, despite WCAG not quite applying to mobile apps yet. The font size and spacing are chosen so that if screen magnification is on, the words won't run together, and the text will still be readable.
The color choices are also logical, which is accessible for users with cognitive disabilities. For example, red is used for failed payments and green is used for successful payments. These colors are universally associated with positive and negative connotations and are easily understood. It’s a good example of a different kind of color accessibility.
The buttons are clearly labeled and easy to understand. This is important in accessibility, especially for those with cognitive disabilities. It is easy to see how to add a customer, make a payment, or view your balance. Essentially, what you see is what you get, which is highly accessible. It also aligns with WCAG guidelines.
The Stripe app offers graphs for users to see changes in their business’s finances over time. The graphs could be more accessible. There is one bold line above a faded gray line, making the graph difficult to read. The numbers indicating what the graph is for are also small, and it’s unclear if there is a way to increase the size besides turning the screen magnification on.
The Stripe mobile app is accessible.
Stripe’s subscriber emails are where they should focus more on good color accessibility. The header of the email is blue, and the background is white, with light gray writing. This is poor color contrast and is very difficult to read. Some words are in dark gray, which is slightly easier to read, but a better choice for accessibility would be black on white, like their website.
Their emails are very clear about who the email is from, what it is about, and why they are emailing. For example, their receipts clarify what the receipt is for, the amount you paid, and who you paid. Stripe has good font and sizing choices for this email – they are very accessible and follow WCAG requirements.
Links in their emails are used accessibly. Instead of using full URLs, they choose text segments to create hyperlinks, which make it clear where the link will take a user. This is accessible because when read out by a screen reader, it gives a user context about the link’s purpose. Additionally, the text segments are short, which keeps someone using a screen reader from being trapped in a lengthy description they might not want or need to hear.
Stripe also does not clutter up their emails with unnecessary text. For users with cognitive disabilities and screen readers, this improves comprehension. It is easier to keep track of what an email says with a screen reader if it is short and to the point rather than wordy. Short, to the point emails are accessible.
Stripe’s subscriber emails are fairly accessible, though they need some work.
Stripe, an online payment processing platform, has made accessibility a priority, specifically color accessibility. This is clear on their website and app, but they need help with their emails. They have a lot of other good accessibility features and overall seem like an accessible business.