When we talk online, we communicate more than words. It’s about design, accessibility and inclusivity. If your company or organization begins using email to reach out to their customers, then you should pay close attention to one of the hottest emerging trends in design: color blindness and accessibility.
Understanding Color Blindness
Colour blindness is a severe visual impairment that affects around 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women worldwide. The most common type, red-green colour blindness, blocks reds and greens, but other types cause blue-yellow vision or total colour blindness. Because color blindness comes in many forms, you have to be careful not to post things that no one else could possibly read.
Email Colors, Why Should You Care?
Color is also an important part of email design. It is not only a visual point; colour is part of language. Marketers often use colour to set up a call to action, segmentation or branding. But when done poorly, colours can drive a large percentage of the viewer away.
An icon with a red button on a green background, for example, that would be intended to prompt a click, might look the same to someone with red-green color blindness. Rather than enthrall the receiver, it creates confusion, frustration and, eventually, possibilities.
Principles of Accessible Email Design
In order to be inclusive in designing emails, marketers should consider the following best practices:
1. Use Color as a Stimulus, Not a Headline.
Colour is a crucial visual language, but the use of colour alone to communicate with us might turn users away. For instance, an instruction like “Click the red button” assumes that every recipient knows the color red. Instead, we’re interested in explicit descriptions of behaviour. Words such as “Click the “Subscribe” button” allow everyone including colorblind people and color-blind people to comprehend what they are being asked to do. Changing your delivery method will also open up your message to more people.
2. Contrast is Key
For example, the most important aspect of a visually accessible email design is to ensure that the text is well-contrasting with the background colour. These are readable thanks to the impressive contrast of their brightness. Marketers can consult Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to determine how much contrast they can tolerate. For the most part, dark text on a white background or light text on a black background is perfect. Focusing on contrast not only makes the text easier to read but also makes the entire user experience of the email smoother.
3. Test with Accessibility Tools
Never start without an email campaign and test the design out on anyone who has all types of color blindness. Several sites offer online colour blindness simulators that allow marketers to explore designs in a new light. This reactive quality keeps colors in check, and keeps the information easy to digest and interesting for everyone. Validating designs with these tools enables marketers to break down communication barriers.
4. Incorporate Patterns and Shapes
Designers can add additional insight beyond colour usage by using patterns, shapes or textures in designs. Button shapes and graphics, for instance, could be different shapes to show what was represented rather than relying on colour alone. It’s a multifaceted approach that not only makes emails more readable, but also facilitates email reading. This kind of visual separation lets marketers open up a community space for all to play around with emails.
5. Avoid Redundant Color Schemes
Colours in which people with colour blindness cannot distinguish – such as red and green – must be managed by brand managers. When you create emails, you want to use a palette that is high contrast and easily recognisable. With less awkward pairings, it is more hospitable and your main messages are heard by everyone. You can test the color you like with color contrast tools and make sure you don’t make a mistake before submitting.
6. Utilize Descriptive Text
You must include relevant text in your emails to make them legible. By letting alt text be displayed on photos, media captions, and descriptive labels on links and buttons, you make accessibility available to the blind and the general public. These textual captions give screen readers context and visual imagery. To make your messages more effective and user friendly, you can add a descriptive element to every image and interactive article that has a description.
7. Educate Your Team
Your business needs to have a culture of openness. Marketers should train and implement mechanisms to be clear that the design is not appropriate for people with disabilities, such as color blindness. When you build knowledge and educate teams, you empower them to effectively collaborate on inclusive emails. Workshops, webinars, and industry resources can promote ongoing learning and enhancement.
The Business Case for Accessibility
Making email easily accessible is socially required, but it is also a business necessity. By making your emails color-blind-readable, you are exposing your content to a much larger audience for engagement, conversion and retention.
Accessible design also obeys other laws and regulations, thereby reducing the chances of a lawsuit for discrimination against disabled persons.
Conclusion:
Color blindness, which afflicts billions of individuals, is the biggest drawback of email design. By taking email accessibility seriously, businesses can ensure they’re creating a welcoming workplace for everyone. Design should not seek to exclude but rather welcome and empower everyone, visually or not. Now that we live in an increasingly digitally inclusive world, let’s make sure our emails are as receptive as they are educative.
