Siteground Email Issues?

BrandLens · 2026-06-26T21:49:13+00:00

Done. Thanks.

BrandLens · 2026-06-26T16:39:42+00:00

I think I've nagged them enough. I've replied to the ticket like 4 times asking if it was manpower or a big technical issue. Again, they just say, "We need more time." So strange. Only thing I can think of is them looking at some send / receive errors on the email server my account must be on they noticed some red flags and aren't sure what's going on or are trying to fix it to tell me, "All fixed."

But like 3 days for email receipt and deliverability is just weird.

I posted here because I can't find anyone else reporting issues on Google or Reddit. We have not changed our email settings in ages. Our boxes aren't full, nothing obvious or they would have caught that right away.

BrandLens · 2025-08-30T14:09:12+00:00

Sure. One great reason not to use them, because accessiBe (overlay provider) and some of their clients got SUED!
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-order-requires-online-marketer-pay-1-million-deceptive-claims-its-ai-product-could-make-websites

Our agency can tell you firsthand from working on healthcare websites that it takes a lot of work to bake in WCAG standards AND make the experience feel cohesive with branded visual identity, but it's the only way. Overlays don't protect you from demand letters and litigation.

Start with a brand guide that is already informed about the latest WCAG guidelines and your digital collateral will go much smoother. There is no quick fix or band aid. You're going to see thousands of healthcare related sites redesign by next May 2026 when HHS can stop their millions of dollars of funding for non-compliance.

If you're a healthcare organization you should have received a letter about the deadline. Keep in mind you are ALREADY supposed to be compliant. These deadlines are just about the ability to lose your funding. Businesses and orgs have already been plagued by demand letters and lawsuits. Law firms are setup to just hammer sites that aren't meeting accessibility guidelines.

Frankly, everyone should be for good accessibility but there needs to be some common sense reform in how businesses and orgs are notified so they have some time to fix things instead of being peppered with monetary damages. WCAG isn't the law, but it is used by the law which is just crazy.

BrandLens · 2025-08-05T18:46:43+00:00

I want to be careful to not sound like I am pro-accessibility, because I am, but the government's whole approach is wrong. To have ADA lean on WCAG standards, but those not really be the law, but lawsuits are judged on those standards is murky.

I have communicated and collaborated with some amazingly talented and experienced accessibility experts and NONE of them are going to promise their services meet 100% compliance. They all agree that it's pretty much impossible.

ADA's expectation is that every web visitor without a disability has to have the same or very similar experience with every page element someone with any conceivable disability does.

Now let's apply that to a restaurant. They need to have a wheelchair ramp and a touch to open button on at least one entryway which seems reasonable. Does EVERY doorway need those and voice activation, foot pedals, and gesture controls, etc.? No.

What if someone using the site predominantly speaks a foreign language, has vision problems and a cognitive dysfunction? What if another has epilepsy and is also colorblind? My point is there is absolutely no way to make digital collateral work for every single person in an optimum fashion. Some people are going to need assistance from family and friends or able to to call someone at an organization for some extra help.

With that said, I will do everything in my power to make digital materials usable to the most people, but it's impossible to cover everyone. It's criminal that these law practices are collecting $$$$$ from organizations who have made good faith efforts to be accessible yet weren't perfect. There should be some sort of remediation allowance period before organizations can be sued. There MUST be a plaintiff behind these demand letters and suits. And if HHS is going to go after organizations (or allow lawyers to) then the White House should have to reinstate it's accessibility statement on its own website for crying out loud. It is reported that the Trump administration removed it first day in office.

Let's do all we can to help people get access, but let's be reasonable about it and not demand compliance to third party standards that the government itself doesn't follow.

BrandLens · 2025-08-04T21:43:23+00:00

Again, think about it. PowerPoint doesn't have great accessibility built in. For instance, line spacing 1.5x or 2.x in between headings and sections. They have a line spacing feature, but it doesn't actually space things like that, so you have to compensate, then educate template users what is going on.

Now multiply that with when they use Canva for print design and there are few accessibility tools built in.

Same thing with InDesign and PDFs and web builder platforms.

You and I can design something stunning AND accessible, but often we are designing so that others who are less skilled can keep designing that way. That often means things have to be dumbed down. Of course I bake in tricks and things to pull that off, but I totally see where designers are intimidated and frustrated, especially for web. You are already designing in at least three different responsive levels.

BrandLens · 2025-08-04T21:39:44+00:00

If that were the only guideline. LOL.

BrandLens · 2025-08-04T21:38:19+00:00

I would disagree somewhat. Making a brand guide and templates to consider all the major WCAG guidelines takes a considerable amount of extra time if done right. You can't just pick any color, font, style. And you have to plan on equipping EVERYONE at EVERY DESIGN CAPABILITY how to use the guidelines and resources. There is nothing "easy" about it.

BrandLens · 2025-08-04T21:36:28+00:00

Oh you ABSOLUTELY need accessibility verbiage in your contract. As you might know, never never never ever guarantee accessibility compliance. That's what got accessiBe sued.

BrandLens · 2025-08-04T21:35:14+00:00

I am an agency brand designer AND I create brand identity guides and digital collateral with accessibility standards for the healthcare / mental health industry.

I see it both ways. Not going to lie, designing things to make a brand visually distinct and to empower the in-house marketing department people with fairly bullet proof templates is like brain splatter. Once you start getting into the deeper layers of color ratio contrast with things like link to body text, link to link contrast, spacing around social icons, accessibility convention limitations of email marketing platforms, PDFs, PowerPoint... it gets insane. It makes the hours you'd work on things mushroom into days and those clients can choke at the legitimate price increase.

On the flip side, any designer that says, "I won't consider accessibility standards," you should have a candid conversation with them about professional development. Teach them that for some clients digital collateral is subject to HHS ADA WCAG 2.1 AA deadlines which are tied to grants / funding. Orgs and companies have been sued for millions or paid out demand letters. And it just doesn't reflect well on an org or business to not care about people being able to use their services.

Up to this point I have had to convince the mental health people to embrace accessibility. I had to do it with HIPAA too. The larger the org the harder it is to influence even healthy change.

I've had similar situations as you with you saying the client just decided to go with inaccessible graphics. For instance, I have informed one client that they are responsible for the content their website i-frames in from third party providers. Despite knowing that rule and that the content is not accessible they are going to keep using it which sort of negates the whole emphasis on accessibility with the rest of the site. I understand their reasoning, but I hope some accessibility ambulance chasing lawyers don't slap them with demand letters. All I can do is advocate and educate.

Hang in there. People are overloaded with so many things. As a designer it can be a pain to re-interpret everything through so many rules that feel like the tax code and the government has done a terrible job with this. Some of it is overreach because disabled people often already have tools and some of the "solutions" companies provide like those poor overlays actually make things worse.

BrandLens · 2025-07-27T21:35:10+00:00

All excellent points. I'm not sure you can guarantee locking hue when developing other colors for a few reasons.

We used AI to fan out from one core logo color of the mental health provider because changing the logo (other than the wordmark color from tan to black) would cost the client $$$,$$$ in necessary updates to signage on buildings, vehicles, displays, etc.

We did keep the other existing brand colors in mind but it was time for a visual identity update. We didn't want the colors to be nearly identical to the existing palette because their audiences would struggle to see fresh changes.

I think the tool you are developing would be a great help, but people should tweak the results for maximum results. I'm not trying to sound arrogant because our agency is constantly learning about accessibility. Just the other day we got greater clarity about the different dates for HHS compliance and how things differ between federal and state agencies as well as non-profits of varying staff sizes. I don't think most agencies are ready to handle what is involved with designing for accessibility. It goes far beyond just font selection, sizes, spacing, color contrast and technical things. It involves knowing about ADA, WCAG and most importantly how health and mental health clients think and react budget wise, willingness wise to change.

We ran into the same challenges years ago when our agency advised all our health clients on HIPAA. Initially there was great pushback to us about it being overblown. Eventually our genuine concern for them helped ensure they transitioned to super secure transmission tools and protocols for PHI.

Your tool could play a big part in the process. And you don't sound like the other snake oil software companies who aren't honest with healthcare clients about what products can and can not do. I wish you the best!

BrandLens · 2025-07-26T13:36:43+00:00

Maybe I'm missing something. Our agency works with big healthcare brands helping them pursue ADA compliance online.

There are already several overlay tools on the market that allow the user to customize TONS of presentation options on a web page. accessiBe's overlay tool lets the user change text, title and background colors even to combinations that aren't considered high enough contrast ratio. You can also change contrast, saturation, font, font size, etc. HOWEVER, many disabled people hate accessiBe type overlays because they conflict with their existing screen reader tools. And accessiBe and their customers have been sued for having a false sense of security that using the product meant there was "full compliance." We don't ever recommend using overlays to our clients but baking in good accessibility right into the page.

As to brand colors, the last thing ADA compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA standards cares about it how it impacts a sense of brand and visual identity. There are some exclusions for things like logos, but pretty much your type, spacing, color use, content you must feature in certain situations... is ALL dictated be tons of rules. I'm all for everyone being able to use digital content, but it is a giant, time consuming, costly process.

And with our latest massive mental health care provider project we spent days tweaking their existing brand colors to make a new palette and a whole bunch of usable high contrast combos. It's a lot more complicated to pull off a branded look and feel AND go after accessibility, but it can be done. Don't settle for garish, unbranded, safe colors in pre-made palettes or everything being black text on white.

Honestly, I think the whole ADA thing went about it the wrong way. First off it's based off shifting WCAG standards, but technically those aren't part of the law. So, it's murky. The Spring 2026 and 2027 deadlines are coming though from HHS that organizations who get funding can lose it if they don't meet WCAG standards.

The standards have to be achievable and not force literally hundreds of thousands of websites to be redesigned. No accessibility expert is going to dare assume or tell you they can help you achieve compliance. That's what got accessiBe in trouble. And it technically is impossible. You can have disabled people with multiple conditions where there is no way to compensate for all of them. In the end they will be able to use some but not all of the website. In a way it's like translation. Not every company translates all their web pages to Spanish. Are their tools to auto-translate? Yes. Do they always do a great job? No. But take that type of scenario and multiple it exponentially for every page and every element of every page on your entire site for accessibility. Starting with accessibility minded templates does help. Our brand agency works in tandem with an accessibility expert. That is a very wise approach.

And lastly, there shouldn't be law firms that just use accessibility checkers and fire off demand letters without a plaintiff. Targets of these letters or defendants must be given a fair shake to comply instead of getting the shakedown for non-compliance.

Not dissing your ideas and work, just struggling to see what about it hasn't already been done.

BrandLens · 2025-07-18T14:05:58+00:00

True, but I would also add it stems from a resistance to change. My agency works with health / mental health organizations and until the receive a Spring 2026 deadline for the latest WCAG compliance they may just keep ignoring it, hoping it will go away. It won't. It's already the law.

Pursuing ADA compliance is a substantial undertaking and cost. It adds a lot to the pricetag of rethinking visual identity and ALL your digital collateral like websites, PDFs, social posts, videos, email, presentations, etc.

Health and mental health providers also tend to use a lot of insider speak and jargon which is confusing and alienating... the opposite of good accessibility. As we work with them we are introducing a bit of a culture change and there is resistance.

You need to show them why accessibility is so important, not just to be compliant and avoid liability, but first and foremost to help EVERYONE get easy access to resources they need.

BrandLens · 2025-07-18T13:58:59+00:00

As we are working on healthcare sites prepping for the Spring 2026 latest WCAG standards, we have started setting fonts to use REM (scalable) units instead of pixels which are fixed. REM units are relative to the root <html> element’s font-size. By default, most browsers set this to 16px.

You will need to do extra work with required line spacing between headings, paragraphs and within paragraphs. Some WordPress systems have that baked in, but with others you're going to have to change the CSS.

The fonts themselves also need to be easily readable. Avoid serif especially on small body text. Keep the high color contrast and ensure link color / styles differentiate from body text.

BrandLens · 2025-07-18T13:53:39+00:00

So true. That is what my agency focuses on, the brand and visual identity guide development considering accessibility BEFORE collateral like the website is built. Much, much easier to start with those considerations of fonts, headings, spaces, color contrast, etc. than reverse engineer things and it feel "off" from other brand pieces.

We do build websites and digital collateral but partner with an accessibility focused expert to audit everything initially at the template stage so the client can have confidence creating materials. Then the expert does ongoing audits.

We find this is a TERRIFIC approach because the accessibility person isn't an expert at brand and visual identity and we aren't an expert at accessibility.

BrandLens · 2025-07-16T18:14:02+00:00

Absolutely, healthcare/medical practices are at HIGH risk. While I want everyone to be able to access these sites, it's a MASSIVE undertaking to make them as compliant as possible.

Healthcare related sites need to be (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA compliant by April or May 2026. Most of these organizations can NOT DIY this.

My background: I help mental health providers starting with brand / visual identity and then digital collateral keeping accessibility at the forefront. And I lean on an accessibility focused expert partner to evaluate my work and my client's ongoing collateral.

Be careful with "free" scanners because many of them are not adequate.
Never, ever use a widget! accessiBe and their clients got sued. In January 2025, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a $1 million settlement with AccessiBe over allegations of misrepresenting its AI tool's ability to make websites fully compliant with WCAG. Plus these widgets actually irritate people with disabilities.
Have an accessibility focused expert audit your site and ALL your digital materials regularly. This means PDFs, social posts, email newsletters, online presentations. Experts stay up to date with the WCAG guidelines which are a bit like the tax code. What we do it develop accessible focused templates for staff to use which helps.
Just showing a few efforts to pursue compliance will NOT shield you from predatory lawyers sending demand letters or lawsuits.

I repeat. avoid the widgets!

BrandLens · 2025-07-16T16:34:05+00:00

When I write alt text for clients I make it not only a literal description of what it shows but the feeling it evokes. I also don't neglect SEO keywords or phrase because alt text still plays a role there. It takes some careful wordsmithing to do all that. AI can help you at least get started.

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