How to Make Your Emails More Accessible

Find out 10 tips on how to design your event emails and RSVP forms while keeping in mind accessibility

Murilo Aguiar avatar
Written by Murilo Aguiar
Updated over a week ago

In order to improve your guest experience, your event email needs to be inclusive and accessible to your guest. Visually impaired guests might use a screen reader technology or a magnification function to be able to 'read' your message.

With that in mind, find below 10 tips on how to improve accessibility:

Write a Relevant Subject Line on your Email

Writing a relevant subject line is recommended if you want to grab the attention of your guests anyway, but it is even more important for visually impaired guests using a screen reader, as this will be the first thing they 'hear'. Ensure the subject line is relevant to the content of the email, so your guests know it is worth opening, and avoid using emojis or abbreviations.

Pro-tip: Use dynamic tags in the email subject line to customise your event message and provide a more personalised experience to your guests.

Use Accessible Fonts

Fonts are an essential aspect of your email's design and the easiest they are to read, the more accessible your guest communications will be.

Opt for sans-serif fonts instead of serif fonts, such as Arial or Tahoma, as they are easier to read for someone with visual impairment than serif fonts, such as Georgia or Times New Roman.

zkipster's text composer offers a variety of sans-serif fonts that you can choose from to make sure your email is more accessible:

Format your Text in an Accessible way

Besides choosing an accessible font, how you format your text can also improve the accessibility of your event message. Choose a font size of minimum 12pt and avoid using excessive italic styling.

Also try to underline only hyperlinked texts, so that guests with color contrast deficiency (color blindness) can differentiate a text that is hyperlinked from a standard text.

Avoid using only Capital Letters

You might think that using only capital letters will make the text easier to read, but in fact, the letters have more similar shapes when written in all caps, which makes it more difficult for visually impaired guests to read.

Use Contrasting Colours for Background and Text

Ensure the color of your foreground text has enough contrast against the background colour of your email to improve readability. Avoid using bright font colors against white backgrounds.

Improve Accessibility of your RSVP Form's Response Fields

By default, the background 2 of zkipster's response form is white, so choosing dark font colors and bold styling can increase the contrast between text and background.

You can also apply this to the labels and description text of your form's response fields. Click into the 'Response Fields' section of your form composer and open the 'Design' tab to be able to customize the fonts of the fields' labels and description text:

Do not Rely on Color to Indicate Meaning

It is common practice to use different colors to highlight parts of your text that needs more attention from the reader, such as a red font to imply a warning or blue font to indicate a hyperlink.

Although this might seem like a good way to improve accessibility, this practice actually can exclude people with color contrast deficiency.

Use different techniques to highlight the text you need, such as using headings or a bigger font size.

Do not Rely on Images to Share Information

If you are adding an image to your email with relevant information to your guests, the information might be missed by guests that will not be able to view the image. Include all important information as a text on the email body.

Avoid Abbreviations and Acronyms

Most screen readers will read an acronym or abbreviation as a word. For example, E.O.D (acronym for End Of Day) might sound as "eod" to your guest and your invitation might not make sense to them.

If you need to use an abbreviation or acronym, include the full meaning of that as a text to improve the accessibility of your event message.

Include a Plain Text Version of your Email

Some of your guests might have their email settings configured in order to receive plain text emails when available, as they are easier to read by screen reader technologies.

Once you create your event email, you can enable a Plain Text version of it inside the Composer tab. You just need to click on the 'Plain Text' section of your email composer and turn the toggle to ON:

The text box is where you will write the text of your Plain Text email. To save you time, you can click on the 'Sync from HTML' link so that all text from your HTML email is copied into the text box.

Please note: Plain Text email does not contain any hyperlinks, images or buttons, so you might need to edit your Plain Text email to reflect these limitations. The zkipster dynamic tags will also not be available, so you will need to write your event information and how your guests can RSVP to your event.

Learn more: 5 Reasons Why Sending a Plain Text Version of your Invitation is Important

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