Improving HTML email
I have been very suspicious of HTML-based email for some time: sending an HTML-based email is a bit hit and miss – I have seen so many rendered as just a pile of code and quite unintelligible to the reader. Nobody – especially not when you’re putting out an important newsletter – wants their email to end up in the Deleted box without even a cursory glance, and such an incident could put off readers for good. The Email Standards Project was born out of a similar frustration. It aims to work with email client developers and the design community to improve web standards support and accessibility in email.
It’s amazing that there isn’t already such a standard. The “state of the clients” reports on the Email Standards website are interesting reading – even with a fairly straightforward list of the kinds of HTML components that one would use in a HTML email many common email clients – including Gmail and Outlook 2007 – don’t do very well.
All power to the community of email users who are spearheading this initiative., I look forward to hearing of more successes.