How Mainova Implements Accessibility - Without Conversion Losses
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About Mainova
Mainova is one of Germany's leading energy suppliers. The company supplies over one million people with electricity, gas, heat and water - as a strong partner for complex large-scale projects, forward-looking urban development and tailored solutions for private households.
Starting Situation
The European Accessibility Act (EAA) requires companies to make their digital products and services accessible from June 2025. For Mainova, this meant: key product pages had to meet new standards for contrast, screen reader compatibility and keyboard navigation - without knowing what impact this would have on conversion performance.
The test was run on a central overview page for electricity tariffs, where the new customer bonus is prominently displayed. This page was chosen because it can significantly influence conversion - the ideal candidate to test whether accessibility adjustments can be implemented without performance losses.
The goal wasn't necessarily a major uplift, but to ensure there was no decline - proof that legal compliance and CRO can coexist without compromise.
Variants
Hypothesis
If we implement the requirements of the European Accessibility Act (EAA) in a way that preserves the visual and structural findings from a previous test,
then the conversion rate will remain at least the same or even increase,
because we comply with the law without sacrificing proven design success factors.
Changes: The variant implemented the required accessibility adjustments (contrast improvements, screen reader compatibility, and keyboard navigation) while retaining the layout and structure from a previous test in the test series.
Test Results
Test setup: A/B test
Runtime: Part of a test series running over several weeks
Sample size: ~7,000 visitors per variant
The variant showed neither a significant uplift nor a downlift in overall transactions — a stable, compliant solution. That was exactly the intended outcome: with a compliance-driven change, the absence of deterioration is the success metric.
Mainova rolled out the variant as the new baseline and continues to iterate on it.
Conclusion
The EAA-compliant variant was rolled out as a stable solution and continues to serve as the foundation for iterative testing.
Learnings from the test series: A large uplift isn't always the goal — when implementing compliance changes, stable performance is the win. At the same time, effects need to be measured precisely. Bundling multiple changes into a single test obscures what helps and what hurts — even seemingly minor adjustments should never be considered too small to test.
Implementation with Varify: Varify's tool has proven to be a strong choice because of its versatility and because we can continue using our central analytics tool for data analysis. The tool is also continuously being developed, giving us the outlook for a long-term partnership.
The experts at Varify support us as a reliable and professional partner on our shared mission of conversion optimization. Along the way, we have already gained many valuable insights that have led to an increase in the conversion rate on our website. We look forward to further experiments and the inspiring exchange.
