Accessible newsletters, how to create accessible email

What the law requires

Two Swedish laws are relevant, and they apply to different organizations. Neither of them says outright that an email must follow WCAG, which is worth knowing before anyone claims otherwise.

The DOS Act, the public sector

The Act (2018:1937) on accessibility to digital public services applies to municipalities, regions, public authorities, publicly governed bodies and certain private actors in areas such as schools and healthcare. The requirements are met through the European standard EN 301 549, which in practice corresponds to WCAG 2.1 level AA, and the organization must publish an accessibility statement. The Agency for Digital Government, Digg, supervises compliance.

There is a limitation here that is often missed. The DOS Act covers digital services provided through a website or a mobile application. A newsletter that lands in the inbox is therefore not in itself a technical solution that the law applies to. Two parts of the mailing are covered, though: the web version, which is a web page, and the subscription form, which is on your website.

The fact that the law does not apply to the email itself does not make accessibility optional. The plain language requirement in the Swedish Language Act still applies, and a resident who cannot read the mailing has not received the information. We go through the whole picture in the guide to newsletters for the public sector.

The Accessibility Act, certain private services

The Act (2023:254) on the accessibility of certain products and services implements the EU Accessibility Directive and has applied since June 28, 2025. It does not apply to private companies in general, but to products and services aimed at consumers in six areas: electronic communications, banking and payment services, e-commerce, passenger transport, e-books and audiovisual media.

So it is not the type of organization that decides, but what you offer consumers. An online store is covered. An agency that sells services to other companies is not. The Swedish Post and Telecom Authority is the market surveillance authority and cannot give advance rulings; you make the assessment yourselves.

Regardless of which law applies to you, there is a reason that weighs more in practice. According to Statistics Sweden, around twelve percent of the working-age population has a disability, and the share is higher among older people. If you include temporarily reduced reading ability, a cracked screen or bright sunlight, the group becomes considerably larger. They never show up in the statistics as anything other than missing clicks.

This guide is general information and not legal advice. Assessments under the accessibility legislation need to be made based on your own organization.

Checklist before sending

Twelve points to go through before you press send. The first six take minutes; the last six are things you set once in the template.

• A subject line that says what the mailing is about
• One H1 at the top, then H2 and H3 in order
• Contrast of at least 4.5:1 for body text
• Link texts that describe the destination, never "click here"
• Alt text on images that carry information
• Empty alt text on purely decorative images
• No important text baked into an image
• Color is never the only carrier of information
• Language and title set in the email's code
• Layout tables marked up so that they are skipped
• A link to the web version near the top
• A text version sent with the mailing

Text that can be read

Accessible text is short, concrete and broken up. It is the same thing as good text, with a few additions.

• Put the most important thing first, both in the email and in each paragraph
• Keep the line length around 50 to 75 characters; that is where the eye keeps up
• Left-align. Justified text creates uneven spaces between words that make it harder for people with dyslexia
• Spell out abbreviations the first time they are used
• Avoid capitals in running text; screen readers can interpret them as initials and spell them out letter by letter

Text size is not a legal requirement, but the practice is clear. Use at least 16 px for body text and at least 14 px in the footer. Never set the size in points or percent in email; support is too uneven between clients. The line spacing should be around 1.5 times the text size.

If you write for a municipality or public authority, the plain language requirement also applies, which is a craft of its own. If you want to go deeper into content and structure, there is a complete guide to better newsletters.

Links and buttons

A screen reader can list all the links in an email, out of context from the surrounding text. That is why "click here" is a problem: the list shows twelve identical lines without meaning.

Instead, write what happens after the click. "Read the full guide", "See prices for 2026", "Register for the kickoff on September 14". The link text should work on its own.

• Avoid linking a bare URL; it is read out character by character
• Do not break a link text in the middle of a sentence; it becomes hard to hit and hard to understand
• Make buttons from text and background color, not from images. An image button disappears completely when images are blocked, which is the default in several clients
• Keep the click area around 44 px high; that is the practice for working with motor impairments on touch screens
• If you have several links to the same destination, give them the same text

An email should also have one clear main step, not five competing ones. More about how to phrase it in the guide to calls to action in newsletters.

The code behind it, what the screen reader meets

Four technical details decide most of it. Once they are right in the template, you never need to think about them again.

Mark up layout tables as presentation

Email is built with tables to hold the layout together. A screen reader, however, interprets a table as data and starts reading out rows and columns. The attribute role="presentation" on layout tables tells it to skip the structure and read only the content. Without it, an ordinary newsletter becomes a reading of a grid.

Set the language

A Swedish email without a language attribute is read out with English pronunciation. Set lang="sv" in the email's code. It takes seconds and makes all the difference for how it is read out.

Give the email a title

The title element is the first thing the screen reader announces when the email is opened. Without it, the reading starts in the middle of the content without context.

Real tables should have header cells

If you show actual data, such as prices or times, the table should have header cells so that the screen reader can connect each value to its column. Keep it simple, avoid merged cells and never set a fixed width.

How to test the mailing

Six checks that together take a quarter of an hour. Do them on a real test mailing, not in the preview, because some functions are only activated when the mailing is sent.

Common mistakes

Six errors come up in almost every review.

• Bold text instead of a heading. Looks like a heading, does not exist for the screen reader
• The whole offer as a single image. Looks good in the design tool, empty when images are blocked
• Light gray text on white. Looks airy and rarely reaches 4.5:1
• "Read more" twelve times. Gives a list of links without meaning
• Alt text that repeats the heading next to it. The same thing is said twice
• The unsubscribe link in 10 px gray. An accessibility error and a deliverability problem, because someone who cannot find the link marks the mailing as spam instead. More on this in the guide to deliverability

If you send different content to different groups, it is also easier to keep each mailing short and clear. Read more about segmentation and how it fits with the rest of the work in the guide to email marketing.

Frequently asked questions about accessible newsletters