How to Solve Your Email Accessibility Roadblocks with Litmus

Key takeaways ✨ Litmus helps make emails accessible with visual impairment filters and 40+ accessibility checks. Curious what your email sounds like when using a screen reader? Litmus can read emails out loud so you’re never left guessing. Never miss alternative text (alt text) again. Litmus checks to make sure alt text is populated and optimized correctly.

 

Accessibility matters and marketers know it. But that doesn’t mean they always follow the guidelines to a T. And some marketers don’t know how to get started making their emails more inclusive—but luckily we can help with that.

Litmus added accessibility checks to the platform back in 2019, and continues to add new features for marketers worldwide. It’s our goal to help marketers create emails that look great and perform on every device and for every subscriber. With Litmus accessibility checks, optimizing your emails for everyone is a whole lot easier.

Table of contents:

• Why email accessibility is a struggle for marketers
• What is an email accessibility checker?
• How Litmus’ Accessibility Checks works
• Who benefits from Litmus’ accessibility checks?
• How to fix your email accessibility challenges
  • Your emails fail WCAG Compliance and accessibility standards
  • Your emails are hard to read in Dark Mode
  • Screen readers can’t interpret your email correctly
  • Your emails are unreadable on mobile and small screens
  • Your team doesn’t have an accessibility workflow
• Make every email accessible with Litmus

Why email accessibility is a struggle for marketers

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 were released way back in 1999. The 2.0 version was released in 2008 and built on principals, “… for developers to ensure an accessible web experience for all users.” That means accessibility should have been a focus for marketers the last 25+ years. So why is it still such a struggle?

“I think there’s a change element here of, ‘Oh if we change the email, we have to strip it really really back.’ I think there’s a lot of thought around the email is going to be boring and we can’t have images and we can’t do all this stuff. So people don’t change.“

Beth O’Malley
Founder, CRM, Email & Marketing Specialist at astral.

The truth is, there’s a disconnect between intention and action. Only 47% of companies use even basic accessibility considerations like alt text in their emails.

But implementing key best practices isn’t just a nice-to-have.

Accessibility is a human right. It is upheld by civil rights laws like the European Accessibility Act (EAA), Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Accessible Canada Act (ACA), and the ADA Standards for Accessible Design (ADA Standards). 

With the right tools, you can identify areas for improvement and make small changes to your emails that have a big impact and make your emails better for everyone. With accessibility testing in Litmus, we help you do just that.

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What is an email accessibility checker?

There are tools, small to robust, to help check email accessibility—hence the name “accessibility checker.” Some will give you a grade for how accessible your send is, and others will flag elements to fix.

You can check color contrast using tools like WebAIM and run your site through website accessibility checks. But there aren’t a lot of email-specific testing tools out there—except Litmus. We have accessibility checks included with every plan.

How Litmus’ accessibility checks works

With accessibility testing in Litmus, it’s easy to make accessibility optimization a part of your email workflow. Instantly see whether your email is accessible for all your subscribers during email building and email testing. Then get actionable advice on how you can make your emails more inclusive (like writing for accessibility).

1. Check if your email follows accessibility best practices. Litmus runs your email through 40+ checks including accessible design, coding for accessibility, contrast ratio, and more to ensure your email is accessible to everyone.
2. Hear how your email sounds on screen readers. 2.2 billion people live with some form of visual impairment and many rely on screen readers to consume online content. That doesn’t even include the people who simply like having their content read out loud to them. Litmus integrates with NVDA to read emails aloud and make sure everything sounds correct before sending.
3. Get actionable advice to improve the accessibility of your emails. See whether your email contains ALT tags, if your content hierarchy is accessible, and ensure your HTML code is optimized for assistive devices.
4. Visual impairment filters. Check your email against four color vision deficiency filters to see how your email displays for subscribers with visual impairments.

Who benefits from Litmus’ accessibility checks?

Accessibility is not a nice-to-have; it’s a requirement. Litmus accessibility checks can help all brands—small and large—get and stay compliant.

Accessibility made simple

Creating accessible emails is no longer optional—it’s required. Learn about accessibility’s impact on brands from two industry experts.

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How to fix your email accessibility challenges

If you checked your email for accessibility and found an error, be sure to fix it before sending. Here are a handful of common accessibility issues and how to fix them using Litmus.

Problem: your emails fail WCAG compliance and accessibility standards

If your emails do not meet WCAG standards, you need to fix them before you even think about clicking that “send” button. Litmus links each identified accessibility issue to external help articles so you can get them fixed quickly.

Problem: your emails are hard to read in Dark Mode

As a user, I love Dark Mode. As a marketer, not so much because it adds an extra step or three to our workflow. But, considering 82% of mobile users prefer Dark Mode, it’s crucial to make sure every send is easy to read in the preferred mode. Litmus checks your Dark Mode and shows and HTML errors in Builder so you can remediate your code.

Learn from the best

Your favorite brands use Litmus to deliver flawless email experiences. Discover the ROI your emails can achieve with Litmus.

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Problem: screen readers can’t interpret your email correctly

This problem could prevent thousands of people from consuming the info in your email. The most common reasons that prevent screen readers from reading your email correctly are:

1. Lack of hierarchy in your email. Make sure to use H1, H2s, etc, and don’t get too fancy with where copy starts and stops.

2. You’re missing alt attributes. There’s no reason to miss alt attributes, especially when tools, like Litmus, can identify any missed alt text for you.

“We’ve been talking about accessibility for many, many years. I know all of us, I’m sure, have, and I think alt text is the lowest hanging fruit for accessibility. It’s not super hard to implement, yet it has a very huge difference in how screen readers can support folks with disabilities.“

Lauren Gannon
Senior VP, Creative at Zeta Global