Your eCommerce platform is crucial to your website. It does almost all of the technical stuff that keeps your site churning for you as well as your customers. It manages your inventory, tracks your customers’ accounts, manages shopping carts, adjusts prices, manages content, places orders and more. But just like any kind of software, from time to time it needs upgrades – the same way your smartphone or web browser might prompt you to update them periodically.
If your website is running on an older Magento platform version and you’ve had no problems, that’s great and it’s also what your website is designed to do. Your platform won’t stop working when a new version comes along, but it won’t benefit from any of the new updates either – which can really make a difference.
These are the current versions:
No matter what version you’re running, whether it’s one or two versions behind or more, these are the top benefits of upgrading your platform:
You don’t have to be a huge corporation like Sony to worry about hacking, viruses and malware. It’s a sad fact but nevertheless a fact, that eCommerce sites are often targets of hackers. Your customers trust you with their personal information and credit card numbers and hackers know this. That’s why it’s always important to stay current with the latest security upgrades.
Anytime Magento releases a new platform version, they will include security updates and bug fixes for other weaknesses they found in their system. By keeping your platform up to date, you’re protecting your business and your customers.
If you were to experience a hack, it could mean losing the use of your site for a time while the issue is resolved. Search engines could block your site and you’d likely lose the trust of your customers. Upgrading your platform to the newest version helps keep your site as safe as possible.
In the same way that platform upgrades improve security, they also improve performance. Through continued use and testing, Magento finds ways to continually make their platforms work better and better. Performance upgrades can help any number of areas – from inventory and analytics to the flow of the checkout process. These kind of upgrades not only help make your life easier, but they also help make sure your site performs as good as it should to keep your customers coming back.
Website technology is always changing so it’s probably no surprise that platform upgrades can give you the latest and greatest options when it comes to keeping your site competitive.
For example, the most recent Magento platform upgrade includes a responsive template option – and having a responsive site in 2015 has become a necessity for most eCommerce businesses. A responsive site works perfectly whether it’s accessed from a computer or a mobile device. Google is even prioritizing mobile-friendly sites in their search rankings since more and more people are searching and buying straight from their phones or tablets. So this is a prime example of an incredible new upgrade that’s available with the latest Magento platform version.
Every website is unique. While these are the top 3 general reasons to upgrade, there may be more specific reasons for your site. ioVista specializes in platform version upgrades for Magento Community and Enterprise editions. If you’d like to learn more about what a platform update can do for your online store, just email us at info@iovista.com or give us a call today. 248-233-0628
Mike Patel is the Founder and CEO of ioVista, a leading digital commerce agency specializing in eCommerce solutions. With a strong background in business and technology, Mike Patel has been at the forefront of driving digital transformations for businesses. He has successfully navigated the ever-changing landscape of eCommerce, helping companies leverage the power of online platforms to grow their brand, increase revenues, and optimize their digital presence. Under his leadership, ioVista has become a trusted partner with major technology companies: Adobe/Magento, Google, BigCommerce, Shopify, and Yahoo. He is dedicated to staying ahead of industry trends, adopting cutting-edge technologies, and continuously improving strategies to provide clients with a competitive edge. Mike’s commitment to excellence and client satisfaction is evident in every project ioVista undertakes.
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We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to
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