Accessible Store Locator Pages: Maps, Lists, and Directions
Store locators lead with a map and treat the list as decoration. How to build a locator where every shopper can find, choose, and get directions to a location.
The store locator is where online shopping becomes a physical trip, and its standard design is a barrier with a search box: a big interactive map, pins that need precise pointing, and location details that appear only when a pin is clicked. Shoppers who cannot use that map are told, in effect, that the store's locations are decorative information.
A locator does not have to work that way. The accessible pattern is well established, cheaper to maintain than the map tricks it replaces, and better for every shopper on a phone in bright sunlight trying to find an address quickly.
The list is the interface, the map is the enhancement
Every location should exist as ordinary page content: name, full address, phone, hours, and a directions link, in a list that can be searched, filtered, and read top to bottom. The map then enhances that list for shoppers who use maps. If removing the map deletes information, the balance is wrong. Test the locator with the map script blocked. Whatever a shopper loses in that test is what a share of your real shoppers loses every day.
Search and filters must behave like the rest of your site
Postcode search, distance filters, and feature filters like step free access or parking need labels, announced results, and honest empty states. When a search finds nothing, say so in text and offer the nearest locations or a widened radius as real options. Announce the result count when it changes. A locator search that silently redraws a map leaves keyboard and screen reader shoppers with no idea whether the store heard them at all.
Location details belong in text, including access information
Hours, including holiday exceptions, phone numbers as tappable links, and practical access details, step free entry, accessible parking, transit stops, are text, not pin tooltips. Access information deserves special care: a disabled shopper planning a trip needs it before traveling, stated plainly per location, kept current. Wrong access information is worse than none, so locations should confirm their details on a schedule, the same way they confirm holiday hours.
Directions should hand off cleanly
A directions link should open the shopper's chosen mapping tool with the destination set, and the address itself should be copyable text for anyone using a different tool or a transit app. Do not make the embedded map the only route to directions. Before the shopper leaves your page, they should already hold everything the trip requires: address, hours for the day of travel, and a phone number for the location itself.
Related reading
If this topic is useful, these earlier guides go deeper on connected questions: Accessible Product Comparison Tables: Grids That Work Without a Mouse or Perfect Vision, Accessible Gift Cards and Store Credit: The Pages Stores Forget to Test, and How to Make Shopify Size Charts and Fit Guides Accessible.
Frequently asked questions
Is an interactive map required for a good store locator?
No. A complete, searchable list of locations with addresses, hours, and directions links serves every shopper, including those who never look at the map. Maps help many shoppers and should stay as an enhancement, but the information must exist independently of the map.
What accessibility information should each location list?
Step free entry, accessible parking and its distance, accessible restrooms where relevant, and any barriers a visitor should know about, like a stepped entrance with an alternative door. Keep it factual, per location, and reviewed on a schedule.
How should locator search announce its results?
By updating a text result count that assistive technology announces, and by presenting the results as a list in reading order. A map silently gaining or losing pins is not an announcement, and shoppers using keyboards should never need to enter the map to complete the task.
What is the quickest test of a store locator?
Block the map script or turn off images and scripts for the map area, then complete three tasks by keyboard: find the nearest location, get its hours for Sunday, and reach directions. If any task fails, the locator's information lives in the wrong place.