What Is Email Accessibility?

In modern times, email marketing strategies are seriously important to most online businesses. Email marketing is used by eCommerce websites, media, entertainment websites – everyone seems to be using it.

That’s why it’s extremely important to create accessible emails. If you haven’t heard of email accessibility just yet, we are going to talk about it in our latest blog post.

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What Is Email Accessibility?

Let’s start off by saying what web accessibility is. This is the moral obligation of every online business and website to make its content accessible and understandable to people with disabilities.

Email accessibility is the same, but with one crucial difference – you are targeting people, potential clients and buyers – directly via their personal email. This is extremely important when designing your email marketing strategy because all sorts of users are accessing your content.

So, how can you know if they are disabled or not? You can’t! And that’s just it – you need to make your emails accessible to all in order to reach your audience and expand it.

Email accessibility is the practice of designing, coding and writing your email marketing strategy in an accessible way. By doing this you’ll be sure that all users – disabled or not – get the exact same message and understand it.

This is also how you’ll reach new audiences and keep them.

Source: Freepik

Types of Disabilities You Should Consider

Disabilities vary in type and severity, so there’s not “a one answer for all” strategy in this. You should think about how to combine more than one best practices in accessibility in order to reach everyone.

The disabilities you should consider are:

• Visual impairments: People who can’t see very well or are legally blind, won’t be able to see and understand your email. Visually impaired users often use assistive technology to navigate and understand the online environment.
• Cognitive impairments: People who have learning disabilities, Alzheimer’s, etc., might be confused when trying to understand your email marketing strategy.
• Motor disabilities: People whose motor function is impaired or it’s completely gone navigate the online world in a different way, including reading emails.
• Neurological disabilities: People who experience seizures, for example, would be triggered by flashing design and bright colors in your emails.

All disabled users access the internet and their emails in all sorts of ways. Some of them require special accessibility software to do so, like screen readers, others use speech-to-text software, some require special keyboards to navigate content.

It’s really important to acknowledge this part when designing your marketing strategy.

How to Check if My Emails Are Accessible?

There is no particular guidebook or set of rules for email accessibility. But! With that being said, the best way to make sure that your emails are accessible is by abiding by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0).

These guidelines are the golden rule in web content accessibility. They are devised and updated by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and are the core guidelines used in every modern accessibility law out there.

And what are emails? They are web content, of course. So, by knowing how to implement certain of these guidelines in your email marketing strategy, you can make sure that your emails are accessible right from the start. You also have to make sure that your emails are accessible on all major email clients.

If you already have an email marketing strategy, you can use all sorts of plug-ins and special software to check if you have any accessibility issues. There are accessibility testing tools for every shape and size of business out there.

And if you want to be really, really sure about your email accessibility, you can hire a professional to audit your marketing strategy based on accessibility alone.

Best Practices for Designing Accessible Email Campaigns

Making your emails accessible may seem like a very difficult task, but in reality, you can do it the same way as making any website accessible. Here we are going to outline some of the best practices out there regarding email accessibility, so it’s easier for you to implement it.

Source: Freepik

Design

When choosing the design for your email campaign, you should look for an accessible design template. Third-party platforms have a wide range of designs like that, devised especially to comply with modern standards in web accessibility.

If you want to design your email campaign from scratch, then here are our pro tips:

• Choose a top two column design: Column design is easier to understand for users, but by adding more than two columns it can become confusing.
• Choose static images over animated ones: Some special software and screen-readers can’t detect animated design, so it can be confusing for users. Instead, choose static images, avoid any flashing lights.
• Keep away from tables as design elements: Tables may seem as a pretty and easy to understand way to give information to users, but they can be very confusing for assistive technology.
• Responsive and logical content: All email content should be responsive, because people with disabilities use all sorts of screens. It should follow the logical order of the elements to make them easier to read. Also, a lot of disabled users use mobile devices so it’s really important that all information is present on the page. 
• Colors matter: When choosing the color scheme for your email marketing campaign, you have to make sure that the contrast ratio between text and background image is high enough. Otherwise, you’re making your content virtually invisible to users. Avoid at all costs to convey meaning only with color. People who can’t see specific colors won’t be able to tell that the content highlighted in blue, for example, is important.

As you can see, all tips and tricks that we described above come from all the good examples of web page accessibility.

Images

When using images or video content in your email campaign, always add alt text or descriptions. This way you’ll ensure that if the image or video is not visible, the information is going to reach the user.

For images, always add alt text describing exactly what is in the image. For video, always add captions and transcripts, if possible, to ensure that the video can be managed by a screen-reader.

Text

Text is a huge part of any email campaign, so it’s crucial to make it accessible.

Let’s start from the beginning - the subject line. Choosing a right subject for your email may seriously influence if the user will open it or discard it in the junk pile. So, it’s crucial to write descriptive subject lines in order to convey the message of what’s in the email.

When writing your email, you should always divide the text into short paragraphs. Keep all text at a good size, preferably around 11 or 12 pt. Font size shouldn’t be too small or too big.  

Ideally, you should use sans serif fonts for your written content, because they are proven to be understandable and visually appealing to people with disabilities. Always try to use plain language to convey a message. Use short and easy to understand sentences. Write link text as descriptive as possible.

Conclusion

Email marketing is really important to more and more businesses. This is the way most companies convey special information to their users directly. That’s why it’s extremely important to try and reach everyone.

Including people with disabilities is part of our collective moral obligation to make the modern world as accessible as possible. By catering to the needs of people with disabilities, you not only avoid lawsuits and troubles with the law, but you also do good for your local community.

And ultimately, that is what makes a difference. That is what drives a new audience to your business.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is Email Accessibility?

Making sure that your email marketing strategy is understandable for people with disabilities.

Is There a Universal Guide Book on Email Accessibility?

No, there is not. But the guidelines of W3C can translate directly to your email marketing strategy.

Can I make my emails accessible without professional help?

Of course! You just need to check what the problems are, follow all the guidelines we’ve given here and you’re good to go.

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