RE: eNewsletter Guidance?

As the author, it’s not your problem if some mail clients change the appearance of the email or some users change the default configuration. In terms of WCAG conformance you are only responsible for the code you deliver.

You might choose to go beyond what WCAG requires by testing in different mail clients and with different settings such as dark mode, but it all depends what you are trying to achieve. Those things are not required for WCAG conformance.

Steve

From: Pyatt, Elizabeth J <ejp10@psu.edu>
Sent: 08 March 2021 19:10
To: Jeana Clark <jclark@veritashealth.com>; Steve Green <steve.green@testpartners.co.uk>
Cc: w3c-wai-ig <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Subject: Re: eNewsletter Guidance?

I did a session on email accessibility and one quirk of email is that you don't always know which clients the reader is using and how it's set up.

For plain text email, this usually isn't an issue, but if you compose email with any kind of formatting tools (e.g. bold, change colors/fonts), then some issues can arise.

I work in dark mode most of the time, but I've gotten some emails with unreadable text because it didn't translate well to dark mode. For instance I'll get yellow highlights on white text (instead of yellow on black). Graphics with a transparent background can also fail

The lesson is that if you use formatted mail or an email mass mail tool, you should test in dark mode. Some programs just override my darkmode, which is fine for me. It's also basic CSS good practice to specify all colors and not assume defaults.

Hope this helps.
Elizabeth

P.S. Image ALT text is also important, but not everyone knows where the tool is, and not all email packages can insert ALT text. The same is true for headings and tables.


On Mar 8, 2021, at 1:55 PM, Steve Green <steve.green@testpartners.co.uk<mailto:steve.green@testpartners.co.uk>> wrote:

There is nothing special about email newsletters – you can apply the WCAG success criteria to them the same as you would to a website. Why do you think it’s any different?

I don’t like checklists like the HHS one. It paraphrases the WCAG normative text, sometimes losing or changing the meaning in the process. Also, being a 508 checklist it only includes WCAG 2.0 success criteria and omits the 2.1 success criteria.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd


From: Jeana Clark <jclark@veritashealth.com<mailto:jclark@veritashealth.com>>
Sent: 08 March 2021 18:06
To: W3C WAI ig <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org<mailto:w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>>
Subject: eNewsletter Guidance?

Hello all -

Does anyone have a good resource for how to test for accessibility within email newsletters? It’s not quite the same as a website. We’re also working with 3rd party templates which I know often aren’t accessible.  So I just want to make sure we’re doing as much as we can to make them accessible.

This list from the HHS seems like a very reasonable checklist to go through: https://www.hhs.gov/web/section-508/making-files-accessible/checklist/email-508-checklist/index.html<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hhs.gov%2Fweb%2Fsection-508%2Fmaking-files-accessible%2Fchecklist%2Femail-508-checklist%2Findex.html&data=04%7C01%7Cejp10%40psu.edu%7Ccf1f1cdd35144baa401208d8e2646a3f%7C7cf48d453ddb4389a9c1c115526eb52e%7C0%7C1%7C637508268207242481%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=D%2Byv0u75kV%2BEWAoC91wrS8ynBv1ZRo8Se5WhL8Mh%2FwQ%3D&reserved=0>

I can’t find anything in the WCAG documentation that mentions emails, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.. searching for email/newsletters gets me a ton of results for signing up for newsletters :) not for understanding accessibility in them.

Thanks!
Jeana

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Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D.
Accessibility IT Consultant
ejp10@psu.edu<mailto:ejp10@psu.edu>

The 300 Building, 112
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University Park, PA 16802
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