You strive to deliver the perfect email experience to your subscribers. But if you’re glossing over email accessibility, you could be alienating those with visual, physical, cognitive, and neurological disabilities.

Read on to learn how to make your emails more accessible for all of your subscribers.

• What is email accessibility?
• Why does email accessibility matter?
• Types of disabilities to consider in email marketing
• Accessibility best practices for email marketers
• Educate your teams to scale accessibility adherence
• Email accessibility in action
• Accessibility tools for email marketing

Accessibility best practices for email marketers

In this section, we’ll cover the best practices and considerations for make email accessible. Keep reading or jump ahead:

• Consider the visual aspects of email accessibility in your design
• Use color intelligently
• Don’t create harmful content
• Balance text and images
• Use larger font sizes
• Give copy space
• Avoid justified copy in your email
• Choose the right typeface
• Use semantic elements
• Improve the readability of your email
• Make links clickable/tappable
• Banish the “click here” link copy
• Use the ALT attribute correctly

Consider the visual aspects of email accessibility in your design

Let’s start by looking at the visual aspects of your email that can impact accessibility and where improvements can be made.

Use color intelligently

Subscribers with color blindness may not be able to differentiate between some colors in your email, so to ensure accessibility for color blindness, make sure color isn’t the sole method of conveying important information.

Color contrast can also pose issues to subscribers with visual difficulties. Use a high color contrast between different elements in your email, especially between copy and background colors. One way to do this is to use WebAim’s Color Contrast Checker to check the contrast ratio of the colors in your email.

Don’t create harmful content

Content that flashes at certain rates or in patterns, such as animated GIFs, can cause photo-sensitive seizures in some individuals. Avoid flashing content or including links to videos that may have similar content.

Looking to include an animated GIF in your email? Consider these guidelines to ensure they’re accessible:

How to create accessible animated GIFs in email

• Avoid harmful flashing rates. Ensure your GIFs do not flash between 2 Hz and 55 Hz to prevent triggering seizures in users with photosensitive epilepsy.
• Ensure readability for visually impaired users. Use smooth transitions or slow animation rates to give users enough time to read and comprehend the content before it changes.
• Provide ALT text for accessibility. Since GIFs are image files, include descriptive alternative text to help users who rely on screen readers understand your content.
• Offer alternative content when possible. Consider static image alternatives or text-based explanations for users who may struggle with animations.
• Test for accessibility. Use accessibility tools to check if your GIFs are perceivable and understandable for all users. With Litmus, you can check and remediate every email for elements that impact how subscribers with cognitive or visual impairments experience them.

Balance text and images

While sighted users can visually scan or skip over non-relevant content, blind users must listen to the entire content of the email, one email at a time. Tailor the written content in your email to deliver the main message. Also, consider how compatible your design is with popular screen readers.

Use larger font sizes

Anything smaller than 14 pixels on a desktop or laptop screen requires some effort to read. Users can increase the zoom level on their devices to help them read their screens, but this can have a negative impact on your email, which may appear broken or cut-off.

Text can appear smaller on mobile devices, forcing users to work harder to read your email. Use media queries to increase the minimum font size from 14 to 16 pixels on smaller devices to help users read your email:

@media screen and (max-width: 600px) { p.mobile {font-size: 16px;}}

For even more accessible typography, consider using rems instead of pixels for font sizes. Rems scale based on the user’s browser settings, ensuring text adjusts dynamically for those who have increased their default font size for accessibility. (Josh W. Comeau dives deeper on his blog.)

Whether to use them depends on your audience. Based on our findings, rems aren’t supported in Outlook and Yahoo/AOL, so they may not be the best choice for all subscribers. A tool like Litmus Email Analytics can help you determine what share of your audience is using these email clients to help you prioritize.

Give copy space

For some it can be hard to read paragraphs and blocks of text where the lines of copy are spaced close together. Set an appropriate line height on text to make it easier to read for all. We recommend choosing a line height that’s 1.5 times more than your font size. (Keep in mind: this will vary depending on whether you’re using rems.)

Paragraph with font-size and line-height set

Tip: when increasing the font size for mobile devices, don’t forget to increase the line height.

Paragraphs of copy also need room to breathe to aid readability. When scanning an email it should be easy to identify paragraphs and be able to keep your place. Create enough white space above and below paragraphs.

One more step to make text easier to read is by moving it away from the edges of your emails. Adding padding to a table cell or paragraph tag will help you achieve this.

Avoid justified copy in your email

“Justified” copy means that letter and word spacing is adjusted so the text falls flush with both the left and right margins. While common in print, the inconsistent word-spacing can make justified copy hard to read. Text that is left-aligned has been proven to be easier to read for all.

Choose the right typeface

The use of web fonts has increased the pool of possible typefaces that can be used in email, but before you decide to use Lobster as your body font, think about how accessible it is.

When selecting the typeface for your email, choose one that is evenly spaced and not too condensed. This is a good idea not just for email accessibility, but for mobile users, too.

And, as always, make sure to include an appropriate fallback font for email clients where the web font isn’t supported.

Use semantic elements

Another key way to improve your emails’ readability and make your email code more accessible is by using headings to create a clear visual structure and hierarchy. This helps organize your content and makes it easier for subscribers using screen readers to navigate.

Coding for accessibility ensures your headings are properly structured, making it simpler for all users to follow the content. Here are some simple tips for using headings effectively:

Including semantic elements gives your subscribers who use screen readers the option to “scan” through an email by header. You can do this by using

and tags. These are supported in every client, so it’s a good place to start making your email more accessible.

Historically, styling

and tags hasn’t been easy, which is why it’s still fairly uncommon to see these tags being used in email. Margins around text wrapped in either of these tags was hard to manage, but using code like this you’ll be able to control that whitespace:

This is a title in an email

And this is the paragraph

For semantic elements, use margin, not padding, as the padding attribute isn’t supported on these elements everywhere. As for rems, Josh W. Comeau gives guidance on his blog.

Tip: Using mso-line-height-rule:exactly; in your tags will maintain line-height rule you set in Microsoft Outlook email clients.

Improve the readability of your email

Creating a more accessible and readable email isn’t only down to how the email is coded, but how the copy is written, too. Writing for accessibility involves making your email copy more human, which aids in readability and helps build a 1:1 communication between you and your subscribers.

The most popular test, known as Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease test, can be found in Microsoft Word and calculates how easy your content is to read on a scale of 0-100. That means:

• A score of 90-100 will be easily understood by an 11-year-old student
• A score of 60-70 will be easily understood by 13- to 15-year-old students
• A score of 30-50 will be understood by college students
• A score of 0-30 will be better understood by university graduates

Making something more “readable” shouldn’t mean you shy away from tricky topics or weighty subjects. Rather than dumbing down your writing, it refers to the accessibility of the text. Opt for smaller words; if you’re not sure if everyone knows what a particular word means, refrain from using it.

For most businesses, your sweet spot is somewhere between 60 and 70 to capture a general audience. Of course, if your audience is highly educated, then don’t be afraid to use more complex language.

Some other points to consider:

• Keeping sentences to around 20 words or less.
• Edit your copy to be direct and to the point.
• Use active voice to keep the sentence structure simpler.
• Avoiding slang, jargon, or regional words that some people might be unfamiliar with.

Make links clickable/tappable

Ensuring the size of your bulletproof buttons are large enough to be used by thumbs and fingers on mobile devices will help with the accessibility of your email too. A bigger button will be beneficial to those who can’t control a mouse with precision.

Banish the “click here” link copy

Avoid using “click here” as copy for your links. Screen reader users often tab through content, skipping through it as a way of scanning an email. Giving your links context will help these users to decide if they want to click through or not.

For example, if you have a link that goes to a product listing of shoes, using link copy such as “See more shoes” lessens the ambiguity of the link for screen reader users. Reducing the ambiguity of links is beneficial for email accessibility, but really benefits all subscribers. It doesn’t require them to read the context surrounding the link, which helps for those who scan emails.

Banishing “click here” links will also move your email content to be more device-independent. “Click here” may make sense for a subscriber using a laptop or desktop, but not for someone using a mobile device or tablet where tapping is required.

Use the ALT attribute correctly

The ALT attribute—used to display ALT text—has been an email best practice since the dawn of HTML emails, owing to email clients blocking images by default. The text used in an ALT attribute attached to an image displays when the image doesn’t load. This helps the subscriber “see” the email if they have images off by default in their email client or if they are using a screen reader to read the email.

To correctly use the ALT attribute, the context of the image must be fully understood in relation to the content surrounding it. First, you need to decide if the image is functional, illustrative, or decorative.

All images require ALT attributes, so a null ALT attribute should be used for images that don’t need to be read by screen readers or don’t represent anything vital to the subscriber.

View your email with all of the images turned off to help you decide which images require the ALT attribute and which ones can have a null attribute.

For a deeper dive into understanding how context informs the use of the ALT attribute for your images, visit WebAim’s page on the ALT attribute.

Use role=”presentation” on all presentational tables

In email design, tables are used to hold content as well as structure the email’s design. Tables were never intended to be used for design. But due to restrictions in email clients such as Outlook, email designers have been forced to use the

To help screen readers understand the difference between

. This avoids forcing a screen reader to read each cell of your tables one at a time and helps the subscriber get straight to the important content—and also improves the experience when subscribers choose to read emails aloud. In addition to role=”presentation”, aria-hidden="true" is another HTML attribute that can be added to elements in your HTML that are for visual content and should be hidden from screen readers: role="presentation" can also be used on images. It’s recommended to use the HTML attribute role=”presentation” on any image with an empty ALT attribute to avoid the name for the image being read. Create emails that everyone can experience Maximize your email’s impact by designing accessible content for all. Accessibility checks are always at your fingertips with Litmus. Build Accessible Emails Email accessibility in action Let’s take a look at examples of accessible emails, submitted by the Litmus community. Subscribers of this email will be able to increase the text size through their browser by up to 200% without breaking the design of the email. And it features an animated GIF that stops after three cycles (within five seconds) for those who suffer from photo-sensitive seizures. Eyal Bitton created an email that uses copy for links that make sense out of context. They also signal to blind subscribers at the end of the email by using some hidden text. Type E’s newsletter uses an interactive progressive enhancement that enables the subscriber to choose from standard or large text size. Email developer Paul Airy also included an option–driven by an opt-in—where the subscriber can choose to display the email with tinted backgrounds if they suffer from certain disabilities. These emails illustrate that it only takes a few small steps for emails to be more accessible and potentially reach a wider audience. Many of these steps not only aid accessibility but also help to improve your emails for everyone. See your emails with images on and off Want to see how your emails look in 100+ desktop, mobile, and webmail clients, including images-off views? Give email testing in Litmus a try, free! Try Litmus free → Educate your teams to scale accessibility adherence Making emails accessible is the right choice, but to get your team on board, you might need to show the business value. Email is a highly effective channel with an impressive ROI of 36:1, and people with disabilities control over $1 trillion in annual disposable income. Ignoring accessibility means missing out on a key group of potential customers. Start by creating accessible email templates that follow best practices, like live text and strong color contrast, making it easier for your team to maintain consistency across campaigns. Regular training and continuous learning will ensure everyone stays up-to-date on accessibility standards. By integrating accessibility into your campaign planning and collaborating with different teams—design, development, and legal—you can make accessibility a routine part of your process. This not only helps meet standards but also builds stronger, lasting relationships with your audience. Accessibility tools for email marketing Looking for tools to help make your email accessibility easier? Our built-in accessibility checker plus additional features can help make things easier for you: Automatic accessibility checks Scan your email for 40+ accessibility areas, with detailed reports and guidance on any issues found. With Litmus’ Email Builder, you can check your code as you work to ensure it meets your subscribers’ needs. Visual impairment filters Visual impairment filters offer four color vision deficiency options, allowing you to see how your email displays for subscribers with visual impairment. NVDA screen reader preview Our NVDA screen reader integration supports over 80 languages. The lang attribute helps screen readers accurately transcribe your message by indicating the language used to draft your email. For more on accessibility testing in Litmus, visit our Help Center. Start making a difference today Maximize your email’s impact with Litmus to ensure accessibility and inclusivity for all subscribers — no matter their abilities. Create Inclusive Emails The post 2025 Guide to Creating Accessible Emails appeared first on Litmus. Related posts: Coding Emails For Dark Mode: A Guide For Email Developers – Litmus A Beginner’s Guide to Optimizing Imagery for Dark Mode Emails – Litmus The Developer’s Technical Guide to Coding Dark Mode Emails The Ultimate Guide To Creating The Perfect Founding Team