Vision 6: Why Email Accessibility Matters in Education Marketing (And How to Get It Right)

July 1, 2025

When it comes to email marketing in the education sector, your message is only as effective as your audience’s ability to access it.

With over 2.2 billion people worldwide living with some form of visual impairment (including 36 million who are blind) accessibility is not a niche consideration. It’s a necessity. And as an education provider, making your digital communications accessible is not only best practice, it’s a legal and ethical responsibility under the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

But here’s the good news. Accessible emails aren’t just more inclusive. They’re better for everyone. And with Vision6’s built-in accessibility tools, compliance doesn’t have to be complex.

What is Email Accessibility?

Email accessibility means designing your emails so everyone, including those using screen readers, assistive technologies, or those with cognitive or colour-vision impairments, can access and understand your content.

For educators, this means ensuring students, parents, faculty and alumni can all interact with your messages, no matter their individual needs or devices.

From government departments to universities and private colleges, more organisations are adopting accessibility-first principles. And education is one of the sectors most affected by these expectations.

Why Accessibility is Especially Important for Education

Many education institutions are already subject to mandatory accessibility requirements. Beyond compliance, there’s a practical reason too. Making your emails more accessible expands your audience and improves the user experience for everyone, including those reading on mobile or using voice assistants like Siri or Alexa.

And the payoff is clear:

Better engagement: Clean, structured emails are easier to read for everyone

Improved ROI: Accessible emails reach a wider audience and perform better

Reputation and trust: Demonstrating inclusivity reflects your institution’s values

The Basics of Accessible Email Design

Here are some WCAG-aligned best practices, and how you can apply them:

1. Use ALT Text for Images: Always provide alternative (ALT) text for images. This ensures screen readers can describe visuals to users who are blind or have low vision. With Vision6, you can add ALT text to images during upload or within the drag-and-drop editor.

2. Structure Content with Headings: Use a logical heading structure (H1, H2, H3) so screen readers can navigate your content. Avoid using bolded text alone as section headers.

3. Left-Align Text (Avoid Justified Text): Left-aligned text is easier to read, especially for people with dyslexia or cognitive disabilities. Vision6 templates default to left alignment to support this.

4. Ensure Colour Contrast: Colour contrast affects readability for users with low vision or colour blindness. Use tools like Vision Australia’s Colour Contrast Analyser to ensure adequate contrast between text and background.

5. Set an Email Title: Titles help assistive technologies describe the purpose of your email. This can be configured in Vision6 when creating your email campaign.

6. Include a Plain Text Version: Screen readers often prefer plain text. Vision6 automatically generates a plain-text version for every email (you can preview and customise it before sending).

7. Use Concise Sentences and Captions for Videos: Clear, simple language benefits everyone — especially users with cognitive impairments. If you’re embedding video, add captions or a transcript for users who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Vision6 Accessibility Tools

Vision6 includes a built-in Accessibility Checker to help you identify and fix WCAG 2.0 compliance issues before sending your campaign. It flags missing ALT text, low colour contrast, missing headings and more, helping you confidently meet accessibility standards with ease.

Building a More Inclusive Future with Email

Accessibility isn’t just a checkbox. It prioritises the user experience inclusively. For education institutions, it’s about ensuring that no student, staff member or parent is excluded from the conversation due to avoidable design barriers.

At Vision6, we’re proud to support Australian educators with tools that help simplify WCAG compliance, improve the user experience, and build engagement through inclusive communication. We’re also: