Screen reader compatibility for emails

[KarinM225]

Constant Contact does not comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility standards because it does not allow the sender to designate certain text as headings.   I have heard tale that there is some way to do this using html code - but I have not been able to easily find it.  Also if I were going to edit the code for things as simple as headings what am I paying for.   Please advise if there is any way to designate headings for accessibility users currently and if there is any plan to make this feature user friendly in the interface.

[Frankie_P]

Hi @KarinM225 are you looking for ADA compatibility in the email campaigns you send? Or ADA compatibility within your account itself? How would you expect to designate text as headings?

[KarinM225]

It is the emails that you send that are not compliant.

A user using a screen reader for a visually impaired reader should be able to tell the difference between text and headings or headlines -- and different levels of headings.  Right now the only way to do that would be to open up the html code (which I could not find) and designate it.

I am looking for compatibility in the emails

You should be able to easily designate something as a heading so that a screen reader can tell the user where the headlines are from the html code.  

[Frankie_P]

Hi @KarinM225  what screen reader are your contacts using?

[CarrieC364]

Your website is not very user friendly to someone using a screen reader who is blind. This is to bad because I hear of it often,, however, it is always followed up with the fact that it does not work very well in terms of accessibility.

[Caitlin_M]

Hi @CarrieC364. I really am sorry to hear that you’re having difficulty. I apologize for your experience today and want to make sure that I'm sharing this with our technical teams who are committed to ensuring customer satisfaction. Where are you experiencing issues when working in your account so I can capture this information?

[Arkansas-Extension]

What is the timeline for Constant Contact making their emails accessible or at the very least, provide text-only email options for clients? Please do not reply with "We're working on it" or "You can do this yourself via a very cumbersome process of creating a text only email that also inludes all the HTML template features we have in all of our templates."

Please reply with a detailed timeline for this major issue.

[LindaA4233]

The development team needs to work with VFO to allow individuals using screen reading technology (JAWS) to be able to successfully generate a campaign after its creation. Additionally, the .html markup is lacking in Firefox ESR and some of the links aren't accessible.

[Frankie_P]

Thanks for following up with these details! We have opened up this idea so other users can weigh in on this request as well.

[CarolynV52]

I am a blind "screen reader" user. I have advanced computer skills and am able to trouble shoot most accessibility related issues. I have found a problem when trying to send e-mail campaigns through Constant Contact, that I have not been able to solve.

Below is a description of my experience with an e-mail campaign.

Using a campaign called “Praying with PWRDF Test Message”

Keystroke – Enter

Brings me to the page called “customize your email”

Navigated to the continue button and hit “Enter’

Took me to the next page called “Select Recipients and Schedule Email”

Attempting to select recipients

Presented with a choice between “Email List” or “New Segment”

Checked “Email list” (heard “radial button checked”) Arrowed through my list of e-mail lists, “Australian Donors” (radial button not checked), “Beirut Donors” (radial button not checked”, “CAPP Team” (radial button not checked), “General Interest” (radial button not checked), “Manual List”

(radial button not checked), Praying with PWRDF” ({271} radial button not checked),

Pressed “Space Bar” to check the box next to “Praying with PWRDF”

JAWS spoke “Praying with Pwrdf (271) check box checked to uncheck press the space bar”

Arrowed down to see which recipients have been selected JAWS spoke “0 lists selected, 0 Recipients selected”

Arrowed back up to the “Praying with PWRDF (271) check box checked”

As a second option I tried pressing the “Enter Key” on the check box Pressed Enter and instead of Recipients and Lists selected, it only unchecked the check box (“Enter” only toggles the check box, on and off, like the space bar does.

Still o lists selected

Forced to get a sighted person to use my Touch Pad. “Left Click” on the check box: JAWS spoke “1 list selected and 271 Recipients”

I wish to be able to do this independently using the keyboard.

[Goldrush]

Add ALT Tag to 'Read More' Blocks image source.

While using an email validation tool, we are being penalized because of missing ALT tags when using the 'Read More' build block.

Can you add the ALT tag in the source code?

Much appreciated!