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Emails and Newsletters
Emails are another kind of electronic document that need to meet accessibility standards and work with assistive technologies, particularly when you don’t know the needs of the people receiving your emails. The good news is most emails are just text, and plain text is accessible by default.
Broadcast and other mass emails are often designed in Outlook or content management systems like Acoustic, Mailchimp and Constant Contact, and with these tools, there are formatting options where accessibility needs to be taken into account.
4 of the 6 Essential Fixes are required for the accessibility of your emails.
Essentials
Links
Accessible Link Guidelines are basically about making text clear on its own.
Headings
If your email is long, use headings to break up content. Headings communicate the organization of the content and provide the structure for screen readers to “scan” the email. Find out more about accessible headings.
Images
- Images must include descriptive alt text
- Images should not contain text
- Find out more about alt text and image use.
Color contrast
Use appropriate color contrast and font sizes.
Contrast is the difference between text color and background color. Learn about color contrast.
Email Attachments and Accessibility
- Avoid attachments if possible. They can be hard for screen readers, unsearchable, and slow to send. Instead, link to accessible web pages or include content in the email.
- If you must attach files, make sure they are accessible. PDFs and images are usually the hardest.
- Check PDFs: If you can highlight the text, a screen reader can usually read it—but full accessibility may require Adobe Acrobat and can be tricky for complex content.