We have a project at my work at the moment around ensuring we meet accessibility standards on our website.
Our emails are built using Salesforce Marketing Cloud layouts. Does anyone know how we can see or test how 'accessible' they are?
I can test using ReturnPath to see how they render on various devices and that gives me results for colour blindness, but I'm not sure how to test how well they would or wouldn't work with a screen reader for example
Emails are a tough one from an accessibility perspective. We are still stuck using tables for layout even in 2021!
We can't use WAI-ARIA and CSS is very limited.
As such I have a smaller checklist for emails that covers the important stuff we can control.
The main things I would look at are:
Make sure that the email reads left to right and then downwards (assuming the language is a left to right language, otherwise reverse it)
Email marketers often just style normal text instead of putting proper headings in. Make sure headings are in fact <h2> to <h6> with a single <h1> explaining the purpose of the email at the start.
Also make sure that the headings do not skip levels (so don't go from <h2> to <h4> for example).
The exact same rules for websites apply to emails. I would recommend running the colours through the Web Aim colour contrast checker for your text and background around the text, button backgrounds and text etc.
Alt attributes on images is the big one you need to check for especially in emails where images might be the only content within a hyperlink. As you can't use aria-label or visually hidden text in an email alt attributes are the only way you can make a link have meaning if it contains an image (plus as email clients block images it means there is meaningful text for everyone else not just screen reader users).
Along the same lines make sure links do not just say "Read more". Instead make link text meaningful e.g. "Read our article on X Y Z".
This one is the only one that is "difficult" as a marketer. You want subject lines to intrigue people to open the email, however for people with cognitive impairments cryptic subject lines can be disturbing / confusing etc.
Getting the balance between "giving the game away" and meaningful subject lines is difficult, if unsure err towards meaningful (it may help your open rate / conversion rate anyway so A / B test it!)
Due to the limitations of email clients the best way to ensure accessibility is to have a custom "view in browser" link in the email (as salesforce etc. are very unlikely to do a good job of the browser versions of their emails).
That way you can use WAI-ARIA, visually hidden text etc. and mark the page up properly, complying with WCAG 2.1 (and very soon WCAG 2.2) requirements.
Obviously I am aware of the amount of work this entails but once you have a template and components built that are accessible it does become much easier.
Personally I would just test manually, but I am sure somewhere out there an email testing service exists similar to Axe Accessibility Checker.
But given the length of a typical email I would say a manual check will only take 2 minutes once you know what to look for so a service may not be worth it.
You could always copy and paste the email HTML into a file and save it with a .html extension and then open and test it in a browser / accessibility checker. But you might get a load of issues you can't resolve due to the use of tables for layout.
Finally - learning to use a screen reader takes less than an hour, grab NVDA or VoiceOver and test the email yourself, if you can understand it and access all the same information as everyone else then send it!
