Email accessibility is frequently overlooked because most email clients do not show you what your message looks like to a screen reader user, a person with low vision, or someone reading in dark mode on their phone. The gap between what you see in your design tool and what some of your recipients experience can be significant. Addressing that gap does not require rebuilding your email from scratch. It requires a set of deliberate habits applied consistently to every message you send.
Start with the basics that affect the largest number of people. Use a font size of at least 14 pixels for body text and 18 pixels for anything you want to emphasize as a heading. Light gray text on a white background is one of the most common accessibility failures in marketing email. Check the contrast ratio between your text and background using a tool like WebAIM's Contrast Checker before you use any color combination. WCAG AA requires a ratio of 4.5 to 1 for normal text. Most email templates fail this test on at least one element.
Every image in your email needs alt text. When an image fails to load, which happens regularly on slow connections and in corporate email environments that block images by default, the alt text is what your reader sees instead. Write alt text that describes what the image shows and why it matters in context. Do not leave it blank unless the image is purely decorative and adds no information value. Decorative images should have an empty alt attribute so screen readers skip them rather than announcing an unnamed image.
Link text should describe the destination, not the action. Links labeled click here or read more tell a screen reader user nothing about where the link goes. Links labeled Read our guide to email deliverability or View your invoice tell them exactly what to expect. This is a simple habit change that immediately improves the experience for screen reader users and also tends to improve click rates because the link text creates clearer expectation.
Test your emails before sending. Litmus and Email on Acid both allow you to preview your email across dozens of clients and devices including screen readers. Most email platforms also have preview and test send features. Always send a test to yourself and view it on your phone before sending to your list. Dark mode in particular can cause issues with images, backgrounds, and text colors that are invisible in your design environment but immediately apparent on a device.
Accessible email is better email for everyone, not just for the people who depend on accessibility features to read at all.