How To Check Emails For Accessibility

Emails, being the most convenient medium of communication and sharing documents and other stuff should remain accessible and usable for everyone. However, due to a wide range of disabilities, several people that may be from our group of colleagues, our family members, or our closest ones, are unable to use email services properly and find it difficult to access them.

Microsoft’s Outlook has a built-in accessibility checker that allows users with disabilities to access emails without any unease fully and will ensure they don’t face any such difficulty.

How to Access the Accessibility Checker in Outlook?

The Accessibility Checker for Outlook emails ensures that your email is designed correctly so that it can be accessed by people with disabilities. It scans email content for various anomalies such as missing alternative texts in images, complex table structures with readable text, complexities in heading styles, etc. The Accessibility Checker ensures that all such anomalies can be eliminated which may pose any difficulty to people with disabilities.

Here’s how you can check Outlook emails for Accessibility Issues:

Step 1: Compose your email first but don’t send it through.

Step 2: Click on More Options menu signified by three dots at the bottom of the Email Composition window.

Step 3: From the new menu, click on Check for Accessibility Issues.

Step 4: Your email will be scanned for Accessibility Issues automatically.

Step 5: Check for the scan results on the right-hand side pane, which appears with the scan results.

Step 6: The Accessibility Checker will list the accessibility issues with the email content.

Step 7: Click on Fix This to resolve the issue.

Step 8: You’ll see the accessibility issue fixed on your email content. Review the changes.

Step 9: Check Again for complete assurance.

This way, you can fix the accessibility issues in your email on Outlook. This feature is an excellent initiative from Microsoft focusing on consumer inclusivity and fulfilling its duty as a consumer-oriented company to help every single user without neglecting any scenario or problem.

How to Request Accessibility Emails from Outlook?

A user can also access his/her senders to send them accessibility emails precisely so that the sender will know in advance that he/she must check the email content for accessibility issues before sending it through. This is to add ease to the people with disabilities and save the trouble of telling individual senders to send them emails only after a proper check on the accessibility issues.

You can activate this setting right from your Outlook account by logging into it on any web browser. Here are the steps you need to follow to enable requests for accessibility emails on Outlook:

Step 1: Open Outlook account on a web browser.

Step 2: Click on the Settings button on the top-right.

Step 3: From the drop-down menu, click on View All Outlook Settings.

Step 4: Select General Settings from the left-side pane.

Step 5: From the new pane, select Accessibility Settings.

Step 6: In the Accessibility Content section that will appear on the screen, find a checkbox saying, Ask Senders to Send Content That’s Accessible.

Step 7: Check the box and ensure it’s encased in a blue tick.

Step 8: Find and click on Save at the bottom-right of the page.

That’s it; now a sender will know to send you emails that are run through Outlook Accessibility Checker before hitting the Send button.

Outlook’s Accessibility Checker also gives people an insight into how to create a more readable email and craft the email content more aesthetically to appeal to the readers. This works primarily in a case when you are sending a cover letter or a resume to a potential employer applying for a vacant position. Or when you’ve documented a report in email or maybe a part of it. The Accessibility Checker will help you craft better professional content for emails on Outlook. So, make sure to get a checkup on your email through the steps mentioned above before hitting Send.