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IKEA Unveils Vision for Digital Accessibility and Inclusion

February 27, 2025  by Karen Parrish in Business Strategy, Industry   

By removing barriers in its digital solutions, IKEA aims to engage more people, including customers and co-workers with disabilities. Such ideas include helping countries to explore and procure technology for sign language interpretation for customers and co-workers, or a local library with assistive technology and information that helps find accommodations for all co-workers with disabilities.

Others include partnering with the Vantaa store in Finland to test out a live navigation tool to help blind and low vision customers. Additionally, the tool can help customers who do not speak the local language by providing voiced directions in over 30 languages.

Finally, IKEA is investing in an automated crawler to enhance accessibility checks across the company. This new tool will complement the existing self-assessment guide and template that product teams already use, ensuring more comprehensive and consistent accessibility improvements.

Digital accessibility is a cornerstone of the IKEA commitment to inclusivity, ensuring compliance with global standards while setting a new benchmark in retail accessibility. The company has already developed and deployed an operational model that integrates digital accessibility in all internal ways of working.

“Accessibility isn’t just about standards – it’s about making everyone feel welcome. As IKEA advances digitally, it embraces the responsibility to create seamless, inclusive experiences for many”

Building the Right Teams
To embed accessibility throughout digital touch points online and in the stores, in 2021, IKEA established the Digital Inclusive Design, Equity & Accessibility Centre of Expertise (Digital IDEA CoE). The team sets direction, guidelines and tools to enable product teams to create accessible digital solutions by improving things like navigation, image and product descriptions, research with people with disabilities and compatibility with assistive technologies.

“Diverse teams create inclusive products, but real change happens by integrating accessibility into policies, processes, and ways of working,” says Tie Wang-Jones, Global Head of Inclusive Design & Accessibility at IKEA Retail (Ingka Group). The centre brings together experts from multiple disciplines, prioritizing people with disabilities and neurodiversities to lead the work and shift historical marginalization.

The centre operates with both strategic and operational teams – driving transformation through change management and executing research and competence development to embed digital inclusion holistically.

Driving Inclusion through Research & Innovation
IKEA, like many other companies, is working continuously towards improving digital accessibility in line with global standards, such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), but the company is committed to going further.

Research is a critical stream of work in the Digital IDEA CoE as evidence-based practice is the cornerstone of how IKEA focuses on doing what’s right. In the past two years, the company has conducted nearly twenty studies, both online and in stores across the world, to gather insights and recommendations on how to improve the shopping experience for customers with disabilities.

IKEA has also partnered with key universities and institutions, such as Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) and Medieinstitutet Malmö, to provide a fresh perspective towards digital inclusion. The company has been exploring opportunities such as providing more accessible information about product highlights and where to find them in the store so that customers with disabilities can make the most of their shopping trip according to their interests.

Building a Lasting Foundation
A key aspect of the IKEA’s digital inclusion journey is empowering co-workers to design accessible and human-centered digital experiences. To make accessibility part of IKEA DNA, the company is investing in certifications, in-house training, and upskilling across teams. Additionally, the IKEA Skapa design system now integrates accessibility standards by default, ensuring that digital design components are consistent and inclusive from the ground up.

Additionally, through collaborations with non-profit organizations such as the European Disability Forum and Business Disability Forum, IKEA aims to be a leader in digital inclusion and accessibility in the world of retail. By working with advocacy groups and industry leaders, IKEA is reaffirming its commitment to inclusivity and creating lasting change across all digital spaces.