What is an accessibility regression?

An accessibility regression is a failure introduced by a change: a theme update, app install, or content edit that breaks something that previously worked for assistive technology users. Regressions are the normal state of an unmonitored store, because Shopify storefronts ship changes weekly and none of those changes announce their accessibility impact.

Where regressions come from

Theme vendors refactor templates and drop merchant fixes. Apps update their injected markup overnight. Merchandisers edit sections and reorder headings without touching code. Each is a normal e-commerce operation, and each can quietly remove a skip link, break a focus order, or unlabel a control across every page that uses the component.

Why they matter legally

A store that was conformant in March and broken in April is broken, and plaintiff scanners check repeatedly to catch exactly that window. The store's intent is irrelevant to the filing. What changes the picture is detection speed: a regression caught and fixed the same day is a maintenance event, while one that sits for months is evidence of neglect.

How to catch them

Continuous scanning with baseline diffs: every change to the storefront triggers a rescan of affected templates, and any new failure is attributed to the change that caused it. The store effectively gains a tripwire, and the dated log of regressions caught and repaired becomes compliance evidence in its own right.