WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Poll: HTML Emails vs. Plain Text Emails

for

From: mhysnm1964@gmail.com
Date: Sep 23, 2017 10:28PM

This is a very interesting topic. The bottom line is email programs have not caught up with todays technology with HTMl. I wonder if this is an ATAG issue more than a WCAG or both?

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Mark Robbins
Sent: Friday, 22 September 2017 8:29 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Poll: HTML Emails vs. Plain Text Emails

To follow on from your point Jared, even if accessibility is implemented on the original HTML some email clients actually strip it out.

For example I know AOL, Yahoo, Outlook.com, Outlook 365 GMX, Web.de and Alto remove all ARIA attributes and HTML5 semantic tags. I've also seen other clients edit ID's so things like aria-describedby no longer match up.

I believe some Email Service Providers can also strip out or edit accessibility before sending but I've not run full tests on those yet.




On 20 September 2017 at 18:54, Jared Smith < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> We've always provided a plain text and HTML option for the WebAIM
> e-mail newsletter subscriptions - https://webaim.org/newsletter/.
> 10.5% of subscribers have opted for the plain text version.
>
> In general, I think that plain text is only beneficial if the HTML
> version doesn't have accessibility implemented. We always send a text
> version with the HTML e-mail - and the e-mail client can then present
> the text version based on user preference.
>
> For e-mail discussion lists, like this one that rarely necessitate
> formatting or images - sending in plain text can provide benefits,
> especially when the message is archived online (and doubly especially
> if authors properly trim the messages they are replying to).
>
> Jared
> > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> >