InTwelve™ — Create accessible HTML emails, one piece of HTML email content at a time.

Create accessible HTML emails, with InTwelve™. InTwelve™ is FREE a tool that guides you through the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), in twelve stages, one piece of HTML email content at a time, starting with Stage 1.

1

Stage 1:

Select the piece of content you want to ensure conforms to the WCAG.

Example: Headline (Markup).

Next
2

Stage 2:

Identify the relevant WCAG Success Criteria for your piece of content.

Example: 1.3.1 Info and Relationships.

Next
3

Stage 3:

List the relevant WCAG Success Criteria for your piece of content.

  • Check for all relevant Success Criteria for your piece of content.
  • Add them to your list.

Finalise your list of Success Criteria.

Example:

Next
4

Stage 4:

Select a WCAG Success Criterion to work on.

Example:

Next
5

Stage 5:

Designate an appropriate owner or owners for your WCAG Success Criterion. One of, or a combination of, the following:

  • Copywriter
  • Creative
  • Coder

Example:

  • Coder
Next
6

Stage 6:

Interpret the WCAG Success Criterion for your piece of content.

  • Refer to the WCAG ‘Show techniques and failures for…’, ‘Sufficient Techniques’ and ‘Situation…’ documents for the WCAG Success Criterion by selecting ‘How to Meet’.

Example: How to Meet Info and Relationships.

Next
7

Stage 7:

Check the WCAG Success Criterion’s conformance level.

  • If it’s Level A or AA, conformance may be legally required.
  • If it’s Level AAA, conformance may not be legally required, but you may want conform to it to enhance your emails accessibility.

Example: Success Criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A).

Next
8

Stage 8:

Select the relevant technique you need to use to conform to the WCAG Success Criterion.

  • Refer to the WCAG ‘Show techniques and failures for…’, ‘Sufficient Techniques’ and ‘Situation…’ documents for the Success Criterion by selecting ‘How to Meet’.

Example: Technique H42: Using h1-h6 to identify headings.

Next
9

Stage 9:

Implement conformance technique you’ve selected to conform to the WCAG Success Criterion.

The techniques relevant to HTML email are:

  • General (G)
  • HTML (H)
  • CSS (C)

Example: HTML (H): Technique H42: Using h1-h6 to identify headings.

Next
10

Stage 10:

Test conformance technique implementation of the WCAG Success Criterion.

  • Use the tests, within the relevant WCAG ‘Show techniques and failures for…’ document, for your Success Criterion (SC).
  • Check if the implementation of your selected technique on your piece of content passes the relevant test.
  • If it doesn’t, re-read the ‘How to Meet…’ documentation, re-implement and re-test before moving to the next stage.

In addition to the tests within the WCAG, test the effectiveness of your selected technique with real people, on real email clients, webmail clients and apps, on real devices.

Example: Tests.

Next
11

Stage 11.

Check if you have other WCAG Success Criteria listed for your piece of content.

  • If you do, go back to Stage 3, and select the next WCAG Success Criterion on your list.
  • If you don’t, go forward to the next and final stage.

Example:

Next
12

Stage 12.

Build your piece of content into a Design System for re-use, and repeat the process from Stage 1, selecting your next piece of content.

Back to Stage 1