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Making Accessible Emails

Accessible email is important for people with disabilities but also for everyone. Find out how to create an accessible email in outlook.

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Format

Outlook offers three format options: HTML, Plain Text and Rich Text. Of these three options, HTML format provides the most accessible experience.

Using HTML format has several benefits that make your email messages more inclusive:

Using HTML format allows you to follow accessibility guidelines like WCAG and EN 301 549.

To send your emails using HTML format:

  1. choose File (Alt + F)
  2. select Options (T)
  3. select Mail (M)
  4. go to Compose messages drop-down list (Alt + C) and choose HTML
  5. select OK.

Bilingual message (if applicable)

Whenever possible, avoid creating bilingual emails. Bilingual emails can introduce a lot of accessibility and usability challenges for a wide range of users.

If you must use bilingual emails, be sure to make them as accessible as possible.

Setting a language

If you set an entire document to English but there are some sections that have text written in French, English screen readers will try to pronounce the French information, resulting in gibberish sounds.

Plain language

Avoid overly complex writing styles.

Resources:

Styles

A Style is a set of built-in formatting characteristics that you can apply to content in your document including headings. A Style contains formatting information such as font colour and size, whether the text is bold or italic, and paragraph and line spacing. When you apply a Style to text, you are applying all the formatting information contained in that Style to you text in one easy step, and you maintain consistent formatting throughout your document.

Using a style

The Styles pane is on the Format Text tab. Highlight the text that you want to change, for example, a heading in your message.

To access the Styles pane, select the expansion arrow (Alt, H, F, Y) and the Styles pane will open. Select Title. The text will be formatted to the Title style and highlighted in the Styles pane.

Modify a style

  1. Place your cursor in the text with the style you want to modify.
  2. Press Ctrl + Shift + S.
  3. Select Modify in the Apply Styles dialogue
  4. In the Formatting group, make any formatting changes you want, such as font style, size, alignment, line spacing, or indentation.
  5. Choose whether the style change applies to the current document or new documents based on this template. It automatically defaults to Only in this Document.
  6. Select OK.

Note: when you modify a style, the change will apply to all instances of text that have that style, not just the text you selected.

Fonts

The most commonly used fonts are Arial or Calibri (sans-serif fonts), and Times New Roman or Cambria (serif fonts). Serif fonts have little “hooks” or ligatures on the characters, while sans-serif fonts (meaning “without serif”) are smooth and have no ligatures. Serif fonts can create accessibility barriers to people with cognitive or visual disabilities.

Please select a sans-serif, for example: Arial, Calibri, Verdana, etc.

Font attributes

Always

Avoid

Use of colour

Don’t use colour by itself to convey information. If using colour to convey meaning, always use one or more additional methods to convey the same information (for example, use patterns, labels, symbols, etc.).

Colour contrast

Outlook Themes

Avoid changing the default Outlook Theme (Office). Using other themes may introduce accessibility barriers.

Semantic structure

Headings

Paragraphs

Lists

Accessible images

Inline images

When inserting images (also known as illustrations) into Word, set the image as In Line with Text as this is the only accessible option and will make sure that adaptive technology will see the image. Do not wrap text around an image as this prevents some users from accessing the images and their alternative text.

Alt Text

Alternative text, also known as alt text, is a description of images or other non-text media. Visual elements such as photos, icons, diagrams and tables should include alternative text that briefly describes the relevant content of the image. You must add alt text to meaningful images or graphics so that they are accessible to adaptive technology users.

When writing alt text, think about how you are using images. Ignore details that don’t relate to the document when writing alt text. For example, a picture of a group of students appears in a document about hiring summer students.

Add alt text

  1. Select an image or graphic.
  2. Right-click on the image and select Edit Alt Text (Shift + F10, A).
  3. Add a description.

Add a caption

  1. Select an image.
  2. Right-click on the image and select Insert Caption (Shift + F10, N).
  3. Add a caption.

Long descriptions

Long descriptions provide the essential information included in a complex image through the use of text. Any reader, regardless of ability, may have difficulty understanding complex images without a longer written explanation.

Using tables

Add a table

  1. Insert a table through the Insert tab (Alt, N, T, I).
  2. Choose the number of rows and columns.
  3. Select OK.
  4. The Header Row and First column checkboxes in the Table Design tab are on by default. Avoid clearing these checkboxes as these are the default accessibility options.

Microsoft Office automatically formats link text as underlined and blue. This helps readers identify where links are in a document.

Note: Only use underline for hyperlinks in your digital content.

Bookmarks

Bookmarks allow you to create links to certain areas within an email, similar to a table of contents, which allow a user to jump directly to a specific part of the email.

Creating a bookmark allows you to choose a topic within your email that you can then create a link to.

Create a Bookmark:

  1. Select the text you want the bookmark link to lead to.
  2. Under the Insert tab, in the Links group, select Bookmarks (Alt, N, K).
  3. In the Bookmark name field choose a meaningful name (for example, “French_section”). Note: spaces and special characters cannot be used in bookmarks.
  4. Choose Add (Alt + A).

Link to your Bookmark

  1. Under the Insert tab, in the Links group, select Link and choose Insert Link (Alt, N, I, I).
  2. In the Insert Hyperlink dialogue box, choose Place in This Document (Alt + A).
  3. Add meaningful link text in the Text to display text input box (Alt + T) (for example, “Section française”).
  4. Under the Bookmarks group in the Select a place in this document area (Alt + C), choose the bookmark name you created.
  5. Select OK.

Accessible email signatures

Create an email signature that will appear at the bottom of all your outgoing emails using Outlook’s built-in signature in mail settings.

Note: Check with your department for formatting and content requirements for signatures.

  1. Go to File (Alt, F).
  2. Select Options (T).
  3. In the Outlook Options dialogue box, select Mail (M).
  4. In the Compose messages section, select Signatures (Alt + N, Enter).
  5. Select New (Alt + N).
  6. Give the signature a name (for example, regular, casual, or formal, etc.).
  7. Move to the signature field (Alt + T and Tab to field) to enter things like a sign-off (Thank you) and your name, title, pronouns, etc.
  8. Use the available formatting options to change its appearance. a. Use appropriate font sizes (12 pt or greater).
  9. Select OK.
  10. Select OK again.

Note: Do not use images of text in your signature block (unless it is a logo).

Testing for accessibility

The Accessibility Checker is not a substitute for knowing how to create an accessible document. It is an automated tool and only identifies some accessibility issues.

Outlook’s Accessibility Checker

  1. Under the Review tab (Alt, V).
  2. Select Check Accessibility (A).

Windows’s Narrator screen reader

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