11 Ways to Make Your Emails More Accessible
By Ray O’Donnell
Overlooking email accessibility can cost you valuable customers and revenue. It goes beyond technical details—ensuring your emails are usable for everyone, including people with visual or cognitive challenges and those using assistive technologies. By making your emails accessible, you expand your reach and build stronger trust with your audience, making it essential to prioritize.
Here are 11 practical tips you can start implementing right away to improve accessibility.
1. Use a Clear, Readable Font Size
Tiny text is the enemy of accessibility. Always use a minimum body font size of 14px — ideally 16px — for comfortable reading across devices. For headers, go bolder and bigger. Many readers with low vision or aging eyes rely on readable typography. This simple change can dramatically reduce abandonment, especially on mobile, where squinting is never a good user experience.
2. Write Descriptive Alt Text for Every Image
Screen readers speak your images aloud — but only if you give them something to say. Write meaningful alt text that conveys the purpose of the image, not just its appearance. If an image is purely decorative, use an empty alt attribute (alt="") so screen readers skip it. Never leave alt text blank on functional images like buttons or infographics.
3. Never Rely on Color Alone to Convey Information
About 8% of men have some form of color blindness. If your email uses color to signal urgency — red for warnings, green for success — without supporting text or icons, you're communicating nothing to a significant slice of your list. Pair color cues with labels, icons, or patterns. Test your designs with a grayscale filter to see what survives.
4. Maintain Strong Color Contrast
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) recommend a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 between text and its background. Light grey text on a white background may look sleek in a design tool, but it becomes invisible to readers with low vision. Use a contrast checker before sending, and err on the side of boldness over subtlety.
5. Make Your Links Descriptive and Obvious
Screen readers often navigate emails by jumping between links. If your links say "click here" or "read more," they convey nothing without surrounding context. Write links that make sense in isolation: "Download the 2026 Accessibility Report" beats "click here" every single time. Underline links in the body text so they're visually distinct even without color.
Structure Your Email with Logical Heading Hierarchy
Headings aren't just visual styling — they're navigation tools for assistive technology. Use H1 for the primary email title, H2 for major sections, and H3 for subsections. A logical heading structure helps screen reader users scan and jump through your content efficiently, rather than listening to the entire message from top to bottom.
6. Use Plain Language and Short Sentences
Accessibility isn't only about assistive technology — it's also about cognitive accessibility. Readers with dyslexia, attention disorders, or those reading in a second language benefit enormously from short sentences, active voice, and plain vocabulary. Front-load the most important information, avoid jargon, and aim for a reading level that a broad audience can comfortably navigate.
7. Design Large, Tappable CTA Buttons
Small buttons are a usability nightmare for anyone with motor difficulties or thick fingers on a touchscreen. Apple and Google both recommend a minimum touch target size of 44×44 pixels. Make your call-to-action buttons wide, generously padded, and surrounded by enough white space that a misclick is nearly impossible. Accessible buttons are, frankly, better buttons for everyone.
8. Include a Plain Text Version
Always send a plain text alternative alongside your HTML email. Many assistive technologies, older email clients, and corporate firewalls strip HTML entirely. A well-written plain text version ensures your message reaches everyone, regardless of how their device renders email. It also signals to spam filters that your email is legitimate, which brings us to the next critical point.
Your accessible email design means nothing if it never reaches the inbox. Authenticate your sending domain with SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance). SPF tells receiving servers which IPs are authorized to send on your behalf; DKIM attaches a cryptographic signature to prove your message wasn't tampered with; and DMARC gives you policy control and reporting over how failures are handled. Together, DMARC, DKIM and SPF protect your domain from spoofing and dramatically improve deliverability — ensuring your beautifully accessible emails land where they belong.
9. Avoid Flashing or Auto-Playing Content
Animated GIFs and auto-playing video can trigger seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy, and they're deeply distracting for readers with attention disorders. If you use animation, keep it subtle and slow — no more than three flashes per second. Offer a pause mechanism where possible, and always allow users to opt out of motion. When in doubt, a still image is more dignified and often more effective.
10. Use A/B Testing to Increase Engagement with Accessible Variants
Accessibility improvements should be measurable. Leverage A/B testing to increase engagement by comparing accessible versions of your emails against standard ones. Test larger font sizes, higher contrast color schemes, improved alt text, and clearer CTAs — then let the data guide your decisions. You'll often find that the accessible version outperforms the original for your entire list, not just readers with disabilities. Accessibility, at its core, is just good design — and good design converts.
11. The Accessible Inbox Is the Better Inbox
Email accessibility isn't a compliance checkbox or a niche concern — it's a competitive advantage. When you write clearer copy, design more legible layouts, authenticate your domain with DMARC, DKIM and SPF, and use A/B testing to increase engagement through data-driven iteration, you build emails that work for every reader, in every context, on every device.
The brands winning in email today aren't just the ones with the flashiest templates. They're the ones whose messages actually reach people — and actually get read. Start with these eleven principles, and you'll find accessibility and performance aren't in tension at all. They're the same goal.
Wrap-up
Email accessibility helps you reach a broader audience while building stronger customer relationships.
Making your emails accessible isn’t just good for business—it’s essential for inclusivity. Start applying these practices today to ensure your emails are usable by everyone
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