In plain English
Some people keep their phone or tablet fixed in one orientation, mounted on a wheelchair, a stand, or an assistive rig, and cannot just turn it. If your store forces portrait (or forces landscape), those people are stuck. This rule says: work in both orientations. Do not lock it, unless a specific orientation is truly essential (which, for a store, it is not).
Who this is for
- People who use a mounted device, on a wheelchair or a stand, where rotating is not an option.
- Anyone, who expects a site to adapt when they turn their phone.
How to check and fix it yourself
On a phone, rotate between portrait and landscape on your key pages. Everything should reflow and stay usable. The usual cause of failure is a CSS or meta setting that pins orientation, remove it and let your responsive layout do its job.
Rotate to landscape on a product page → layout adapts, still usable. ✓
Site shows "please rotate your device" and blocks landscape. ✗Where we can help
Orientation locking is rare but easy to ship by accident (often via a theme setting or an app). We test both orientations across your templates and flag any that break. It is one of the checks in our WCAG 2.2 overview.