People don’t buy a shower chair because it’s “sturdy”. They buy it because it holds their weight, fits their tub and sits at a height they can get up from. The same goes for a rollator, a reacher or a jar opener: each one is bought on a fact about the shopper’s own body and home.
So publish those facts as numbers. Give each a unit, say what it covers and who set it, and say plainly who the product isn’t for. Then leave out health and safety promises you can’t back with a document. That’s the whole job, and it’s what lets an AI assistant match your product to the right person.
(By “accessibility” we mean daily-living and mobility aids. If you’re after accessible product pages for screen readers, start with our accessible size chart guide.)
Your shoppers are checking against their own body
Read your support inbox and you’ll find the same questions over and over:
- “I’m 290 pounds. Will it hold me?”
- “I’m 6’3”. Will the handles come up high enough?”
- “My tub wall is 18 inches. Will the bench sit on it?”
- “My grip is weak. How hard is the trigger to squeeze?”
- “Will it open a big pickle jar?”
Every one of those needs a number to answer. When a shopper asks ChatGPT the same question, the assistant can only recommend products whose information gives that number. If your page says “heavy duty” and the next one says “450 lb capacity”, the assistant has nothing to match on yours.
What four real searches showed
On November 4 we searched Shopify’s catalog, the product feed Shopify shares with ChatGPT and other AI assistants, the way shoppers ask. Here’s what the top 10 said.
| Search | What listings did well | What was missing |
|---|---|---|
| “shower chair with back 300 lb weight capacity” | All 10 descriptions stated a weight capacity | Two never mentioned a back, in a search that asked for one |
| “rollator walker for tall person with seat” | 5 of 10 gave a user-height range | The other 5 left tall shoppers to guess |
| “reacher grabber tool 32 inch lightweight” | Length everywhere; 3 gave a 5-pound lift limit | None gave a number for trigger effort |
| “jar opener for arthritis weak grip” | 4 of 10 gave the lid sizes they fit | None gave a number for the effort needed |
The pattern is clear. Load limits are well covered. Height is half covered. Grip and effort, the thing many of these shoppers care about most, is described almost entirely in adjectives.
Load limits: one number, what it covers, who set it
Shower chairs are the good news. Every listing in that search gave a weight capacity, and one of them gave a useful “no”: a transfer bench that “supports up to 250 lbs”, in a search for 300. That’s the listing working. The 300-pound shopper moves on, and the store skips a return.
Two things still trip listings up.
Ranges where a limit should be. One rollator’s description said “Weight capacity: 300 lbs.” Further down, its specification table also said “Weight Capacity Range 201 - 300 lbs”, and listed “Item Weight 11-20 lbs” next to “Weighs: 14 lbs”. Those look like store filter labels. Shopify’s generated spec list (fields it labels “Inferred”) picked the ranges: “Weight Capacity: 201–300 lbs” and “Product Weight: 11–20 lbs”. To an assistant, a 290-pound shopper now sits somewhere inside a vague band instead of safely under a clear limit. Keep filter labels out of your spec table, and write each limit once, as one number.
Labels doing a number’s job. Three shower seats from one seller called themselves “Bariatric-Grade” and “Lab-Tested”: two rated at 450 lbs and one at 300 lbs. None named the lab or the test. The number is the useful part. If a lab tested it, name the lab and the standard. If the limit is the manufacturer’s rating, say “manufacturer’s rated capacity”. Both are honest. An unnamed lab isn’t something anyone can check.
Also say what the limit covers. Is it the user’s weight, or the user plus whatever’s in the seat bag? Is it for sitting still, or for the moment someone drops onto the seat? If the manual says, copy it.
Height and fit: give the endpoints, and make your copy agree
Half the rollators in that search gave a user-height range, with top ends from 6’1” to 6’4”. That’s exactly what a tall shopper needs, and the other half left them guessing.
One listing gave two different answers. Its spec block said “Approximate user height: 4’10”-6’1”“. Its marketing paragraph said it suits “someone under 5 feet tall to someone over 6 feet tall”. A shopper who’s 6’3” reads the second line and orders. An assistant sees two answers and can’t confirm either. Make the friendly sentence quote the range: “fits users from 4’10” to 6’1”“.
The same goes for anything that has to fit a room or a fixture:
- Adjustment ranges with both ends: seat height 17” to 21”, handles 29.5” to 38”.
- Footprint: width at the widest point, so a shopper can measure a narrow tub. One stool gave “17.5” at its widest point”, which is perfect.
- Fitting conditions: one transfer bench said its legs “accommodate tub walls up to 18” high”. That’s the kind of line that answers the tub question before it’s asked.
Grip and effort: publish what you can measure
This is the gap across the category. Not one reacher or jar opener we saw gave a number for how hard it is to use. Instead: “needs minimal squeeze force”, “Minimal grip strength required”, “effortless”. For someone with arthritis, effort is the question, and an adjective doesn’t answer it.
You may not have a force gauge, and that’s fine. Publish what you can measure:
- What it grips, with sizes. The best jar opener listing said it fits lids “0.98” to 3.74” / 2.5 to 9.5 cm diameter”. Four of the ten did something like this.
- Handle size. Length and diameter, so a shopper can compare with what they hold now.
- Tool weight. Several reachers gave it, from “about 8 oz” to “less than 10 ounces”. For a weak wrist, that matters.
- The motion. Squeeze trigger, twist, lever or button. One hand or two. Battery or manual.
- What it lifts. Three reachers gave a 5-pound limit. Say it, and say if it only holds on smooth surfaces.
If you have measured the trigger or twisting force, publish it with how you measured it. If you haven’t, don’t call it “effortless”. Describe the motion and let the shopper decide.
Say who it isn’t for
A clear “no” is the most useful line on an accessibility listing. It sends the wrong shopper somewhere better before they order.
- “No backrest.” Two shower seats in that search never mentioned a back at all, in a search that asked for one.
- “Not a transfer bench: you’ll need to step over the tub wall.”
- “Fits users up to 6’1”.”
- “For lids up to 3 inches.”
- “Rated to 250 lbs.”
Shoppers can’t act on what you leave out. They can act on a limit. Our guide to publishing what your product doesn’t do covers this in more depth.
Keep health and safety promises to what you can document
Listings in this category lean hard on safety language. In one search we saw “prevent dangerous sliding on wet floors”, “safely lower yourself and stand back up” and a seat cushion that “eliminates the pain of hard plastic”. An assistant can’t check any of that, and a careful one won’t repeat it.
Write what’s physically true instead: rubber feet, the seat height range, the foam thickness. Only use words like “prevents falls”, “clinically proven”, “medical grade” or “therapist recommended” if you have the document behind them, and name it. If you don’t, leave it out. You lose nothing: the shopper is matching on the numbers anyway.
Specific facts are also what gets a product considered at all. In our simulation, AI models almost never picked a product described in vague words, and picked the same product far more often once its facts were stated plainly. That test used humidifiers, but the lesson carries: adjectives get skipped.
The accessibility product checklist
Run each product through this before you call its listing done.
| Fact | Write it like this | Not like this |
|---|---|---|
| Weight capacity | “Manufacturer’s rated capacity: 300 lb (136 kg)” | “Heavy duty”, “Bariatric-grade”, “201–300 lbs” |
| What the capacity covers | “User weight, seated” or “user plus bag” | A number with no scope |
| User height | “Fits users 4’10” to 6’1”” | “Great for tall people” |
| Adjustment ranges | “Seat height 17” to 21”, in 1” steps” | “Height adjustable” |
| Footprint and fitting | “17.5” at the widest point; tub walls up to 18”” | “Fits most tubs” |
| Reach and grip size | “32” long; jaw opens 4”; lids 2.5 to 9.5 cm” | “Extra long reach”, “fits most jars” |
| Effort | The motion, the tool’s weight, and a measured force if you have one | “Effortless”, “minimal grip strength” |
| Who it isn’t for | “No backrest”, “not for users over 250 lb” | Silence |
| Health and safety | Only what a named document supports | “Prevents falls”, “lab-tested” with no lab |
| Source | “From the manufacturer’s manual” or “measured by us” | A number with no origin |
Give each row the same value everywhere: title, description, spec table and metafields. Our product specification template shows the field-by-field format, and our category guide shows how to build this kind of list for any product shoppers buy on a fact. Baby gear has its own version in our baby product data guide.
How we checked
On November 4, 2026 we ran five searches in Shopify’s public catalog, written the way shoppers ask, and saved the top 10 for each with no shopper location set. This page quotes four of them: shower chairs, rollators, reachers and jar openers. We read each listing’s title, description and Shopify’s generated lists side by side, and counted only what the description said unless we name another field. We didn’t test any product.
Your next step
Pick your best-selling aid and answer the first question your customers email about it, as a number with its unit and where it came from. If it’s a limit, add the “who it isn’t for” line too. Put both in the description this week.