Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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Blind and visually-impaired Redditors! Let's talk about plain-text emails. (self.Blind)
submitted by RyanGittins
Hi there, /r/Blind!
I'm a developer and I've been tasked with making plain-text emails. As some of you may know, when an email is sent by a company it's often delivered as two components simultaneously: an HTML version and a plain-text version. The HTML version has all of the images, colors, and styling, while the plain-text version is simply text.
There are many guides out there for making HTML email more accessible, but relatively little on making the plain-text version as friendly as possible to all readers. I'm hoping to strike a balance between being screen reader-friendly and being friendly to sighted users.
One thing I often see in plain-text emails is the use of dashes or some other character repeated across the screen to separate sections. In my testing with VoiceOver, these characters would be read as "fifteen dashes" or similar. That doesn't seem ideal. My current theory is that using capital letters to differentiate section headings is ideal, as it stands out to a sighted user but isn't read differently by the screen reader.
So, what are the things you appreciate and the things you dislike about plain-text emails? What would the ideal plain-text email be like? Am I even correct in my assumptions that the visually-impaired community uses plain-text emails, or is the default HTML email more common than I think?
Any insights you could give me would be very helpful!
I'm a developer and I've been tasked with making plain-text emails. As some of you may know, when an email is sent by a company it's often delivered as two components simultaneously: an HTML version and a plain-text version. The HTML version has all of the images, colors, and styling, while the plain-text version is simply text.
There are many guides out there for making HTML email more accessible, but relatively little on making the plain-text version as friendly as possible to all readers. I'm hoping to strike a balance between being screen reader-friendly and being friendly to sighted users.
One thing I often see in plain-text emails is the use of dashes or some other character repeated across the screen to separate sections. In my testing with VoiceOver, these characters would be read as "fifteen dashes" or similar. That doesn't seem ideal. My current theory is that using capital letters to differentiate section headings is ideal, as it stands out to a sighted user but isn't read differently by the screen reader.
So, what are the things you appreciate and the things you dislike about plain-text emails? What would the ideal plain-text email be like? Am I even correct in my assumptions that the visually-impaired community uses plain-text emails, or is the default HTML email more common than I think?
Any insights you could give me would be very helpful!
Marconius 4 points 4y ago
I use HTML emails, of course hoping that semantics are built correctly, and am generally positively surprised when alt text has been written correctly or when decorative images have been hidden correctly, basically when emails follow WCAG.
There isn't really anything you need to do to make plain text better. Screen readers are already set up to parse and read it all back, and it's quite simple to skip past repeated characters.
There isn't really anything you need to do to make plain text better. Screen readers are already set up to parse and read it all back, and it's quite simple to skip past repeated characters.
quanin 3 points 4y ago
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. This ain't broke. Please direct your talents elsewhere. The open source community could use you on projects like the Orca screen reader, for example.
bradley22 3 points 4y ago
I’ve always used the HTML emails.
i don’t think you’d need to make any changes to the plain text emails, we can arrow or flick past thebits we don’t need.
i don’t think you’d need to make any changes to the plain text emails, we can arrow or flick past thebits we don’t need.
bscross32 3 points 4y ago
I use the HTML email.
HDMILex 2 points 4y ago
There's literally hardly anything you need to change with plain text email. We can read everything and we're used to dashes etc
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