You’ve got 10 seconds…
According to Campaign Monitor, this is the average amount of time someone spends reading a brand email in 2024. So, let’s make sure your messages are as accessible as possible to make this time count!
Accessibility is just as important in the message design as it is in the written content and the code behind the scenes. Here’s a list of things to check when making sure the design of your organizations messages are accessible to everyone.
- Make sure your brand colors have an appropriate color contrast between all elements. Use high color contrast between the text and any background colors that you use. This is something that I see problems with quite often as not all graphic designers know to check color contrasts between the different elements, or the brand guidelines were set long ago without being checked for color contrast ratios as part of the process.
- Use web-safe sans-serif fonts like Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, or Tahoma. These font are widely supported across devices, operating systems and email clients as well as being known for their legibility. The custom fonts you use for your website may not available to the email client that opens this message so use the closest web-safe font in email to be sure it will be legible.
- Use a reasonable text size. The text size should be at least 16 px in size so it can be read easily on mobile devices and for those whose aging eyes that need something larger. Using tiny fonts to fit more in the message won’t help communicate your message more clearly so be sure that everyone can read it!
- Align text to the left. Avoid centering text as it can be harder to scan quickly for those with intellectual or developmental disabilities and take more time to read. A short headline may use centered text, but align all other text to the left for quick scanning to lesson confusion on the text flow of the document.
- Don’t include text on an image. Someone with a visual limitation that may be using a screen reader can’t pull any text off of the image so your image intent may be lost.
- Use alt text for images. Provide alternative text for images to ensure that the reason you included the image (other than for design purposes) isn’t lost. The only images that should not have alt text are those that are purely used for decoration.
- Make sure that all of your Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons are large enough for someone’s finger to click in on a small mobile device. Think of a minimum size 44px in height with the width large enough to fit the text you are using.
- Finally, use an accessibility checker such as Email on Acid, Accessible Email.org or Litmus will help you with every message that goes out from your organization to not only make sure they don’t look broken but are fully accessible with every send as well.
Accessibility is important for email design because it ensures that all users can access and engage with the content. Even non-disabled people may find emails easier to understand when designed with accessibility in mind so this is a win for your organization from all perspectives!