Accessibility Principles
Accessibility is important to Mutual of Omaha. For email, it means making sure that we deliver a positive experience to all subscribers, including those who may not use the web in a conventional manner. By following accessibility best practices for email, we ensure that everyone can receive and understand our message. More information about web accessibility, best practices can be found in the ADA Principles section of the Digital Design System.
Structure & Elements
Responsive design is critical for creating a logical hierarchy for an email. If not structured properly, multi-column templates will sometimes resize on mobile devices or screen readers to display out of the intended order. Using render testing tools such as Litmus ensures content displays correctly for all subscribers no matter what device or email client they're using.
Subscribers who use screen readers or keyboards rely on page elements to determine the informational hierarchy of an email and navigate through it. Including semantic elements such as paragraph and heading tags in an email allows them to quickly scan through the content of an email. These elements are supported across all email clients and should be used to identify important sections of content, rather than relying on style elements like colors or bold text.
Color & Contrast
Color and contrast is critical to accessibility. In addition to building for the visually impaired, remember that environmental variables (such as sunlight or an old monitor) can also alter how a user may view or interact with a website. When used as described, colors and contrasts provided in the Design System are Level AA compliant. For more documentation about color contrast, check out the colors section.
Content & Imagery
It is important to be direct and clear with the message of any email. Use sentence-style subject lines to let subscribers know exactly what's inside. Vague link text can be especially confusing for subscribers who use keyboards or screen readers to navigate through content. It is important to use meaningful link text that provides adequate context to let subscribers know what to expect when they click on a link.
For subscribers who use screen readers, or have images disabled in their email client, it is important to make sure that the most critical information is presented in live text. Images used to complement that information should be labeled properly with the ALT attribute. The text used in the ALT attribute should be short, yet descriptive, and highlight the relevance of the image to the overall message of the email.