Create your very own Auto Publish News/Blog Site and Earn Passive Income in Just 4 Easy Steps
The biggest football game of the year is over and the Kansas City Chiefs are repeat NFL champions. In a year or two, most of us will have trouble remembering who played in SB LVIII. These are some of the commercials that stick in our minds.
Every year there are crazy commercials, celebrity cameos and crazy stunts. But there are always a few commercials during the NFL Championship broadcast that tug at our heartstrings and sometimes even highlight important points.
The Google Pixel 8 ad, “Javier in Frame,” is one of those memorable commercials. It tells the story of a man with visual impairment and shows key moments of his life through his eyes. Check out the commercial below, and if you haven't seen it yet, you might want to grab a tissue.
The focus of the Google Pixel commercial is accessibility
What you see in the ad is Javier using his smartphone's accessibility features to take photos and videos of his life – from getting a dog to falling in love to starting a family. Incidentally, it is also Stevie Wonder who does the voiceover in the ad, which was directed by award-winning filmmaker Adam Morse, who is blind.
The commercial highlights a feature called Guided Frame, which helps people with vision problems classify the images in their cameras. Many people with disabilities use specialized technologies like this to access things and engage with the world.
For example, people with visual impairments and those with limited mobility often use screen readers to interpret the content of websites and emails. But here's the catch: Those of us who design and develop email and websites still need to keep this software and the needs of the people who use it in mind.
Let's say you place a graphic in an email with a coupon code that customers can use for a big promotion. Screen reading software may not be able to interpret the content of the graphic. For this reason, we strongly advise against sending emails with only images.
What screen readers can interpret is the alt text for images in emails, which should be written to accurately describe the visual elements in a helpful way. However, alternative text for images is just one way to make digital content accessible.
Do you send accessible emails?
Last year, the Email Markup Consortium (EMC) conducted its second annual email marketing accessibility study. To say the results were disappointing would be putting it mildly.
The EMC report found that 99.9% of over 290,000 emails evaluated had accessibility issues rated as “major” or “critical.” The issues included everything from missing attributes that define the correct language to missing alternative text for images and link text that is not descriptive.
Some may find the steps required to make an email more accessible tedious, but they are extremely important. Email engagement rates and accessibility go hand in hand. If people can't read, understand, or click on your email campaigns, they won't take the action you expect.
If brands don't consider digital accessibility, it can also lead to problems with the law, especially if they violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). A study by UsableNet found an increase in accessibility complaints in 2023 compared to the previous year. This study examined more than 4,600 cases, including federal lawsuits as well as state lawsuits in New York and California.
Because email is an important part of the customer experience, you need to ensure you communicate effectively with all types of customers. Important information is delivered to email inboxes every day. Think back to the COVID-19 pandemic. Imagine not being able to access or understand an important email containing health and safety information from a company you do business with.
The truth is that improving email access can improve the experience for every contact on your list, not just those with visual impairments or other disabilities. Furthermore, improving digital accessibility is the right thing to do. It shows that your brand cares about every customer and subscriber.
Check out our email accessibility resources
We were thrilled that digital accessibility was getting the attention it deserves. Kudos to Google and the people behind the commercial for using the biggest television event of the year to highlight this important issue in an understandable way. As of this writing, the video has already had more than 36 million views on YouTube.
If improving digital accessibility is on your brand's to-do list, we have some great resources to help you make email more accessible:
If you're interested in email accessibility videos, you can watch Megan Boshuyzen's presentation at Unspam. Megan also hosted digital accessibility advocate and email enthusiast Najee Bartley on an episode of Notes from the Dev. In the episode, hear what it sounds like when screen readers encounter email code that isn't designed for email Accessibility is optimized (and not pretty).
Assess email accessibility before hitting send
At Sinch Email on Acid, we have been big advocates of accessibility for quite some time. We think it's so important that we've built accessibility checks into our email readiness platform.
Use our tool to automatically improve email code, check color contrast, and validate your email against key accessibility guidelines. You can even view your email design using filters that show you how it looks to people with color blindness.
Sinch Email on Acid's accessibility tools come with our industry-leading email previews, showing you how everything will appear on more than 100 clients and live devices. With Unlimited trials on every paid planYou can continue working until you can fully rely on the Send button.
Author: Kasey Steinbrinck
Kasey Steinbrinck is Senior Content Marketing Manager for Sinch Email, which includes the Email on Acid, InboxReady, Mailgun and Mailjet brands. He understands how email and content work hand in hand to create a strong strategy. Kasey has also spent time working in traditional media, e-commerce marketing and for a digital agency.
Create your very own Auto Publish News/Blog Site and Earn Passive Income in Just 4 Easy Steps
