I recently received a HTML newsletter that was "…laid out in accordance with The Email Newsletter (TEN) standard for access technology users”. Great. Only, it’s wasn't inclusive, because the message it seemed to send was “It’s OK that this newsletter looks dull & ugly, because it’s designed for visually impaired people”.
Would we (or any brand) want our corporate communications to look like this? If we really believe that users with visual (or other) impairments have the same emotional needs and aspirations as anyone else, then we should strive to maintain the design language of the brand – intended to communicate specific messages and appeal to those user needs. We can’t simply discard it in the name of accessibility. This is not easy. It requires designers to take a much more intelligent approach to standard implementation (possibly to the standards themselves) that delivers usability whilst still allowing expression of brand messages beyond just “we made this accessible to visually impaired people – aren’t we great?”.
I’m not criticizing the standard outlined here – reading through it, it appears very thorough and well considered. Rather, the challenge for designers is more intelligent and inclusive implementation. Accessibility standards should be part of a broader design strategy – they are not a design strategy in themselves. The implementation below has resulted in a document that is actually very difficult to navigate/read without screen reader software!
