Challenge
Members of the Boston College community often send emails to promote events, share information or advise as to a new process. In recent years emails containing images have become increasingly popular as a means of attracting attention to the message.
Recommendations for Accessible Emails
- Sending email messages containing large decorative images should be avoided as a general practice. Images should be compressed prior to sending.
- Why? Sending large images via email can cause issues with network traffic and email storage.
- Why? Sending large images via email can cause issues with network traffic and email storage.
- The image should not contain embedded text. The relevant details should be included as text in the email.
- Why? Screen readers cannot read text that is embedded in an image.
- Any small images within the email should also contain ALT text describing the image.
- To optimize screen reader performance, avoid using images as links.
- If possible, HTML emails should be avoided
- Some users may have "text only" email clients that cannot render HTML emails
- The complexity of developing HTML emails requires usability testing
For any questions or assistance, please contact websupport@mxappagd.com.