Accessibility guidelines for email

Ensure there’s sufficient contrast between the text and the background.

A dark font against a light background is best for accessibility. Avoid using background images that make text difficult to read.

Large blocks of text can be tricky to read for lots of people, including people with dyslexia who can experience visual distortion, where words appear to be jumbled up.

It’s best to present bite-sized chunks of information in small, digestible paragraphs. Another way to break up text is to use headings that accurately describe the content.

Attaching flashing content that appears in videos, animations and gifs should be avoided.

If they are included, they should meet the ‘three flashes or below threshold’, which requires that no content flashes more than three times per second.

Visual content that contains more than three flashes within one second can provoke seizures in people who suffer from photosensitive epilepsy.

A clear font such as Arial is best for viewing on a screen.

Decorative or handwritten fonts are much harder to read and therefore less accessible. Use a 12-point clear font or larger to make your email content legible on all devices including laptops and mobile phones.

It is important to have adequate line spacing between each line of text to ensure it is readable.

Lines of text that are close together are much more difficult to read. 1.5 line spacing is about right.

Aligning all text to the left in left-to-right reading languages makes it easier for people to see where each line begins.

People with reading difficulties can struggle to follow long lines of text, so keep them to a maximum of 60 to 70 characters.

Justified text leads to uneven spacing, which can be hard to read.

Centred text can make it difficult to see where each line begins.

Words that are italic and underlined are difficult to read. Use regular for your main text, and bold for titles and to highlight key words if necessary.

Large passages of bold text are hard to read, and some screen readers will shout out words in bold, so use them sparingly. Colour alone is not a reliable way to emphasise key information either. Bullet points are a good way to help people read and digest information quickly.

Instead of: See my points in red below

Try: See my bullet points below

When writing, think about the words you use when having a conversation, remembering that our brains take in information more easily when it’s broken into small chunks.

It’s also good practice to read your writing line by line and removing unnecessary words. You should also use common words over more unusual ones.

Instead of: Demonstrate
Try: Show

Subject lines should be short, concise and relevant to the content of the email.

Avoid complex or flowery language, which can be confusing and misleading, or subject lines that are not very clear.

Instead of: Read these pointers when you’ve got a minute

Try: Tips to help you write accessible subject lines

Include alt text on images, including photographs, charts, icons, logos and diagrams.

Alt text is a short description of the image that is read aloud by screen readers. It is essential for users with visual impairments to help them understand the email.

Read our alt text guidelines

Hyperlinks should convey clear and accurate information, describing where people will go if they click the link.

People who use screen readers may scan for the links, so avoid using link texts such as ‘click here’, ‘learn more’ and ‘link’. Instead, write descriptive link text.

Use a different colour to highlight the hyperlink text. You should also underline hyperlink text to help people who are colourblind recognise that it is linked.

Instead of: Click here

Try: Make emails accessible

Emojis should never replace words as they can completely change the meaning of an email.

Screen readers will read the alt text description of an emoji and you run the risk of users interpreting the message in a completely different way to what you intended.