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From: Alan Zaitchik
Date: Wed, Jun 01 2022 7:57AM
Subject: Email with HTML content
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Would appreciate feedback: I'm working on an email with HTML content. At the top there's a “view in browser” link which opens an HTML page in the user's browser. That page will soon be made accessible. But the original email file is not accessible in Outlook— nested presentation tables, lack of headings and list structures, and more. Screen readers give an inferior expeeience, to say the least.
Does the convenience and immediacy of the “view in browser” link count as affording an equivalent experience? Will AT users opt to use the link as a matter of course when they hear it or encounter bumps in the road in Outlook? It may be impossible to rework the email itself for the Outlook mail client.
Thanks,
A

From: glen walker
Date: Wed, Jun 01 2022 9:39AM
Subject: Re: Email with HTML content
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As a last resort, you can use the "conforming alternate version" clause,
https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#dfn-conforming-alternate-version, in the
definition of AA conformance: "For Level AA conformance, the Web page
satisfies all the Level A and Level AA Success Criteria, or a Level AA
conforming alternate version is provided."

So even if your email is not fully conformant, if your "view in browser"
version is conformant, you can be considered conformant. Ideally, you want
the email itself to be conformant.

This is also assuming the "view in browser" link is accessible. That is,
if "view in browser" were embedded in a sentence such as, "To read the
entire email, view in browser", and the link were not distinguished from
the rest of the sentence, then you'd have an accessibility issue with the
link and you would not pass the "conforming alternate version".

On Wed, Jun 1, 2022 at 7:57 AM Alan Zaitchik < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Would appreciate feedback: I'm working on an email with HTML content. At
> the top there's a “view in browser” link which opens an HTML page in the
> user's browser. That page will soon be made accessible. But the original
> email file is not accessible in Outlook— nested presentation tables, lack
> of headings and list structures, and more. Screen readers give an inferior
> expeeience, to say the least.
> Does the convenience and immediacy of the “view in browser” link count as
> affording an equivalent experience? Will AT users opt to use the link as a
> matter of course when they hear it or encounter bumps in the road in
> Outlook? It may be impossible to rework the email itself for the Outlook
> mail client.
> Thanks,
> A
> > > > >

From: Philip Kiff
Date: Thu, Jun 02 2022 10:08AM
Subject: Re: Email with HTML content
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On 2022-06-01 09:57, Alan Zaitchik wrote:
> [....] the original email file is not accessible in Outlook— nested presentation tables, lack of headings and list structures, and more. Screen readers give an inferior expeeience, to say the least. [....]

Having an alternate method of accessing the email is always good. Also, including a plain text version - the email format allows for the inclusion both.

But I didn't think that emails fall under the WCAG in a simple way, do they? It is very common for emails to use nested presentation tables, for example, and that is partly in order to deal with the fact that there are so many different email rendering engines and that (almost?) NONE of them actually process HTML correctly according to spec.

I'm not sure that nested tables, for example, are on their own an accessibility barrier in emails, are they? They don't meet the HTML spec of course, but do they actually present a barrier to reading for screen reader users?

And sending emails in plain text only isn't necessarily a good solution for accessibility either.

That's not to say that we shouldn't be trying to find ways to create properly tagged HTML emails, but even really great email systems are still generating wacky code in order to fix broken email readers, aren't they?

List please don't hesitate to let me know if I"m wrong on this!

Phil.

Philip Kiff
D4K Communications

From: Alan Zaitchik
Date: Tue, Jun 07 2022 12:02PM
Subject: Re: Email with HTML content
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Thanks, Philip. I agree that there's a difference between auditing web content for wcag compliance and rejecting email content for non-usability in Outlook, but in this case we have what will be an accessible, usable web alternative we can link to from the email. So I guess what I should have been asking more clearly is whether screen reader users would find it “overly burdensome” to activate the link, leave Outlook (for example) and enter a browser context to get the content that way. If the answer is a resounding “You must not force them to do so!” then I might lobby for a revision of the email version itself so that it is usable in Outlook. If the answer is less “energized“ I might let this slide and pick my battles more wisely.
Now that I put it that way, I realize there is no likely definitive answer to my question!!
Such is life…
A

> On Jun 2, 2022, at 12:08, Philip Kiff < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> On 2022-06-01 09:57, Alan Zaitchik wrote:
>> [....] the original email file is not accessible in Outlook— nested presentation tables, lack of headings and list structures, and more. Screen readers give an inferior expeeience, to say the least. [....]
>
> Having an alternate method of accessing the email is always good. Also, including a plain text version - the email format allows for the inclusion both.
>
> But I didn't think that emails fall under the WCAG in a simple way, do they? It is very common for emails to use nested presentation tables, for example, and that is partly in order to deal with the fact that there are so many different email rendering engines and that (almost?) NONE of them actually process HTML correctly according to spec.
>
> I'm not sure that nested tables, for example, are on their own an accessibility barrier in emails, are they? They don't meet the HTML spec of course, but do they actually present a barrier to reading for screen reader users?
>
> And sending emails in plain text only isn't necessarily a good solution for accessibility either.
>
> That's not to say that we shouldn't be trying to find ways to create properly tagged HTML emails, but even really great email systems are still generating wacky code in order to fix broken email readers, aren't they?
>
> List please don't hesitate to let me know if I"m wrong on this!
>
> Phil.
>
> Philip Kiff
> D4K Communications
>