Why 94% of E-Commerce Sites Are Failing: Jane Austin on Design, AI and Accessibility
Jane Austin on the accessibility crisis, design ROI, and why the most powerful AI is invisible.
Jane Austin has a problem with how the design industry talks about itself. As VP of Design at Contentsquare, the analytics platform used by marketers and designers to improve customer experiences, she’s spent years watching the same debate resurface: does design actually have ROI?
“I think sometimes we have this perception of creativity as somebody starving in an attic, writing a novel, that it somehow should be unsullied by commerce,“ Austin tells me. “But actually, design is a business driver. It’s not a fluffy thing you do at the end.“
Her career backs this up. She’s joined companies at inflection points – IG during its rebrand and shift to agile, the Government Digital Service during its transformation of government services, and Babylon Health during its international expansion. At each, she’s had to prove design’s business value.
AI: Taking Away the Drudgery, Not the Joy
On AI’s impact on customer experience, Austin sees brands getting it wrong from a business perspective. While much of the press coverage focuses on the novelty of AI-created content and images, she believes this overlooks AI’s potential to improve business outcomes.
“I don’t think people want to have the pleasure of shopping taken away. Shopping is really good fun. I wouldn’t want AI to be buying my clothes because that’s actually quite a joyous and human thing to do,“ she says. “I think brands would be mistaken to take that fun and joy and satisfaction away from the consumer. What they need to do is enable what brings humans joy by taking away a lot of the drudgery.“
Contentsquare’s newly launched Sense Analyst embodies this philosophy. The AI agent automates analysis and A/B testing, reducing time spent on manual data analysis, test preparation, integration with testing platforms, and results monitoring. This enables teams to make faster, data-driven decisions and focus on strategy, rather than routine tasks. It doesn’t replace human creativity – it creates space for it.
Austin highlights the business impact of AI by referencing surveys as an example. Traditionally, the manual analysis work required for customer surveys deterred companies from doing them. Using Contentsquare’s AI, this process is automated: data is analysed quickly, themes are identified, and actionable business steps are suggested, which speeds up business responses. The same business benefit applies to session replays, as AI prioritises attention where it matters most, saving resources.
The ROI Problem: Why Designers Need MBA’s
The debate about whether design and UX have ROI resurfaces every year, intensifying during downturns. Austin completed an MBA to address this communication gap.
“I didn’t have the vocabulary to talk about cost of acquisition, cost of retention, churn, CAC, or value drivers,“ she says. “That’s what you’re there for. Your design work serves the business. If you don’t know how your business makes money, how you help make or save money, or how you contribute to EBITDA, you can’t position yourself as a value driver.“
Her advice to designers seeking promotion: learn the language of business. This isn’t about compromising creative integrity – it’s about demonstrating impact. Contentsquare can tie UX friction directly to churn, lost revenue, and adoption rates. When design eliminates friction, these metrics improve.
At Babylon Health, this approach helped scale teams dramatically. Cross-functional teams were funded based on business opportunities, rather than design being treated as a separate cost centre. “You can talk about things like expansion, transformation, look at the business drivers, and talk about how design can either enable them or prevent waste,” she explains.
The E-Commerce Accessibility Crisis
The Contentsquare Foundation’s recent E-Commerce Accessibility Report contains a startling figure: 94% of e-commerce checkout flows are inaccessible, with average accessibility scores of just 7.5 out of 10. Product listing pages and product detail pages score even worse.
Gabrielle Moreau, Contensquare’s Communications Manager joins our conversation and explains that the Contentsquare Foundation’s primary mission is to raise awareness and provide free training through European digital schools. “There’s been a failure from the start – websites weren’t designed with accessibility metrics,” she says.
The European Accessibility Act came into force in June 2025, and the implications extend globally. Any e-commerce site targeting EU markets effectively every major e-commerce platform worldwide – must comply.
But the problem goes beyond regulatory compliance. As aging populations increasingly rely on online services, accessibility failures exclude growing segments of the population from digital society. “If you’re not able to complete something online, it means you will be completely out of society overall,” Moreau warns.
Global marketplaces score significantly better (nine out of ten) than European retailers (three or four out of ten). Moreau attributes this to customer-centricity:
“The biggest players are doing better because they’re much more aware of customer expectations. They want customers to complete the checkout, so they fix the product pages first.”
Austin argues that fixing accessibility requires organisational and cultural change, not just technical fixes. It demands comprehensive documentation of accessibility rules, control over the front-end architecture, and senior buy-in. “It requires systems design and organisational design such that accessibility is baked into the work of the teams building the product,” she explains.
The Invisible AI Advantage
Austin keeps returning to the same point: the most powerful AI is invisible. Rather than flashy Gen AI image generation or chatbots, CMOs should focus on AI that increases revenue by improving customer journeys, reducing operating costs by speeding up team processes, and enabling better customer experiences at scale.
Recent consumer research from Contentsquare supports this. 70% of US consumers don’t want AI agents completing purchases on their behalf. Trust remains key, particularly around data transparency and personalisation. “The brands that will build transparency around data and personalisation will see this as a key driver for loyalty,” Moreau notes.
Austin’s advice to CMOs centres on three priorities:
Prioritise boring but high-impact work like removing friction and automating repetitive tasks.
Think in terms of orchestrating entire experiences rather than isolated touch-points.
Use AI to create space for human creativity rather than replace it.
“Give space for human creativity – things that are bespoke and authentic which allow you to stand out,“ she says. “AI is what enables that.“
While the marketing industry chases shiny AI implementations, Austin’s focus on invisible infrastructure, measurable business impact, and inclusive design stands out. The question isn’t whether AI will transform marketing and design – it’s whether organisations will use it to enhance human creativity or inadvertently diminish it.
