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Thread: email campaigns
Number of posts in this thread: 10 (In chronological order)
From: Trafford, Logan
Date: Tue, Oct 07 2014 10:48AM
Subject: email campaigns
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Is anyone aware of either a fully compliant, or at the very least, somewhat decent (in terms of accessibility) email campaign tool?
Logan Trafford
Intermediate Web Developer (WCAG Compliance)
Corporate Accessibility Office
City of Ottawa
(613) 580-2424 x13598
This e-mail originates from the City of Ottawa e-mail system. Any distribution, use or copying of this e-mail or the information it contains by other than the intended recipient(s) is unauthorized. Thank you.
Le présent courriel a été expédié par le système de courriels de la Ville d'Ottawa. Toute distribution, utilisation ou reproduction du courriel ou des renseignements qui s'y trouvent par une personne autre que son destinataire prévu est interdite. Je vous remercie de votre collaboration.
From: Karl Groves
Date: Tue, Oct 07 2014 1:56PM
Subject: Re: email campaigns
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I'd imagine that any product that allows you design control over the
emails can be accessible. For instance, I use MailChimp for all the
Tenon.io email. You need to design the message template yourself or
verify the accessibility of the message template.
On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 12:48 PM, Trafford, Logan
< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Is anyone aware of either a fully compliant, or at the very least, somewhat decent (in terms of accessibility) email campaign tool?
>
> Logan Trafford
> Intermediate Web Developer (WCAG Compliance)
> Corporate Accessibility Office
> City of Ottawa
> (613) 580-2424 x13598
>
>
> This e-mail originates from the City of Ottawa e-mail system. Any distribution, use or copying of this e-mail or the information it contains by other than the intended recipient(s) is unauthorized. Thank you.
>
> Le présent courriel a été expédié par le système de courriels de la Ville d'Ottawa. Toute distribution, utilisation ou reproduction du courriel ou des renseignements qui s'y trouvent par une personne autre que son destinataire prévu est interdite. Je vous remercie de votre collaboration.
> > > --
Karl Groves
www.karlgroves.com
@karlgroves
http://www.linkedin.com/in/karlgroves
Phone: +1 410.541.6829
Modern Web Toolsets and Accessibility
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uq6Db47-Ks
www.tenon.io
From: Charles Krugman
Date: Tue, Oct 07 2014 7:22PM
Subject: Re: email campaigns
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they have become worse over the years for screen reader users as much of the
content in the body of the emails is shown as images or graphics. This has
become a problem with Constant Contact and lately Mail Chimp. This isn't
something I deal with reguglarly but notice the issues in many emails that I
receive for events etc.
Chuck
From: Karl Groves
Date: Tue, Oct 07 2014 8:22PM
Subject: Re: email campaigns
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Indeed. But this isn't inherent to Constant Contact or Mail Chimp. In
both cases the author has a sufficient level of control to make their
emails accessible. They just don't know how/ care how to do so.
On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 9:22 PM, Charles Krugman < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> they have become worse over the years for screen reader users as much of the
> content in the body of the emails is shown as images or graphics. This has
> become a problem with Constant Contact and lately Mail Chimp. This isn't
> something I deal with reguglarly but notice the issues in many emails that I
> receive for events etc.
> Chuck
>
>
From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Wed, Oct 08 2014 6:54AM
Subject: Re: email campaigns
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> Indeed. But this isn't inherent to Constant Contact or Mail Chimp. In both cases the author has a sufficient level of control to make their emails accessible. They just don't know how/ care how to do so.
I've heard of some other platforms that use layout tables for emails and don't allow the user to insert an alternative view link prior to the layout table -- they supposed only allow users to control the content within the layout table itself. This can be an issue for certain screen reader users with programs like Outlook.
Jonathan
From: John E Brandt
Date: Wed, Oct 08 2014 8:29AM
Subject: Re: email campaigns
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Most of the group mail services provide an option to send both an HTML and non-HTML version of the same message. However, many folks forget to do both (or don't bother). The non-HTML versions are not pretty because the links that get created are very long because they include tracking code.
In addition, many of the templates that are provided to the user are not very accessible or usable. I'm guessing that mail protocol cannot use CSS so the layout is done with tables and the use of graphics for text.
There is usually a way to add ALT descriptions to images in these system, but again, unless you know what you are doing, it is not easy to accomplish.
With some effort, I was able to create a fairly accessible design in Constant Contact. The problem was the footer which is generated by a server-side process added images without ALT descriptions. I asked CC to fix this and...well, you know how that goes...
~j
John E. Brandt
jebswebs: accessible and universal web design,
development and consultation
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
207-622-7937
Augusta, Maine, USA
@jebswebs
www.jebswebs.com
From: Olaf Drümmer
Date: Wed, Oct 08 2014 9:01AM
Subject: Re: email campaigns
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On 8 Oct 2014, at 16:29, John E Brandt < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> I'm guessing that mail protocol cannot use CSS so the layout is done with tables and the use of graphics for text.
Absolutely not: many emails I receive have tons of CSS inside their HTML, and they work well in recent desktop email clients. I am not sure how well they work in web mail clients.
Olaf
From: Karl Groves
Date: Wed, Oct 08 2014 10:36AM
Subject: Re: email campaigns
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The CSS support in mail clients is still very poor, which is why you
see so many layout tables being used in HTML email.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 11:01 AM, Olaf Drümmer < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> On 8 Oct 2014, at 16:29, John E Brandt < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
>> I'm guessing that mail protocol cannot use CSS so the layout is done with tables and the use of graphics for text.
>
> Absolutely not: many emails I receive have tons of CSS inside their HTML, and they work well in recent desktop email clients. I am not sure how well they work in web mail clients.
>
> Olaf
>
> > > --
Karl Groves
www.karlgroves.com
@karlgroves
http://www.linkedin.com/in/karlgroves
Phone: +1 410.541.6829
Modern Web Toolsets and Accessibility
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uq6Db47-Ks
www.tenon.io
From: James Nurthen
Date: Wed, Oct 08 2014 1:40PM
Subject: Re: email campaigns
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Yes - it is that cross-platform compatibility issue. If you want certain
formatting and you want your email to render the same (this tends to be
important for marketing people) across the myriad of email clients (mobile,
web (gmail, yahoo etc.) and traditional clients) then layout tables end up
being the ONLY way to do this.
What we really need is that any clients which do not support
role=presentation already to start supporting it - and those that actively
remove unknown markup from their emails to stop doing that for aria markup.
That way we can use layout tables and simply mark them up as presentational.
regards,
James
On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 9:36 AM, Karl Groves < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> The CSS support in mail clients is still very poor, which is why you
> see so many layout tables being used in HTML email.
>
> On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 11:01 AM, Olaf Drümmer < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> > On 8 Oct 2014, at 16:29, John E Brandt < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> >
> >> I'm guessing that mail protocol cannot use CSS so the layout is done
> with tables and the use of graphics for text.
> >
> > Absolutely not: many emails I receive have tons of CSS inside their
> HTML, and they work well in recent desktop email clients. I am not sure how
> well they work in web mail clients.
> >
> > Olaf
> >
> > > > > > >
>
>
> --
>
> Karl Groves
> www.karlgroves.com
> @karlgroves
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/karlgroves
> Phone: +1 410.541.6829
>
> Modern Web Toolsets and Accessibility
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uq6Db47-Ks
>
> www.tenon.io
> > > >
From: Don Mauck
Date: Fri, Oct 10 2014 7:44AM
Subject: Re: email campaigns
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This is all very true and while JAWS has been to do what they can to make it better, I never enjoy all those tables and graphics in my emails.