The Email Standards Project is working hard to persuade email client developers to adhere to HTML web standards so that email has a better chance of appearing as it was designed to across the majority of email programs. It’s a very noble effort.
Recently, thousands of people joined the dedicated team at the Email Standards Project to send a message to Microsoft, who is going back in time with plans to use MS Word as the rendering standard for Outlook 2010 – even though that is sooo 1989.
They did receive a response from Microsoft, who said that they appreicate the concern and that, well, yea – the check is in the mail. Actually they said “The mosaic is hangning in our hallway.”
Because this sort of carry on can get a bit confusing, I thought I’d create a little comic strip to explain what’s going on.
* To see this and other comic strips by The Messaging Times, just click the strip!
Email marketers routinely have a difficult time getting their carefully crafted HTML emails to look right in Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007. This is largely due to Microsoft using MS Word as their benchmark for HTML design. Of course, most email marketers do not create their messages in MS Word. Why would they when the majority of email clients don’t support this format – and messages created in Word will not look right in the majority of email clients.
As usual, the team at the Email Standards Project are on the case.
“…After testing the latest beta of Outlook 2010 and seeing the same poor standards support as 2007, a senior member of the Outlook team confirmed they plan on continuing to use Word to render HTML emails. Not only that, but early tests indicate that HTML support in the Word engine has not been improved in any way. Same bugs. Same quirks…” keep reading and see some screenshots
The Email Standards Project is calling on all of those who are frustrated with Outlooks proprietary approach to email rendering to send a clear and unified message to the Microsoft Team.
“…All you have to do is tweet your thoughts about this issue, and make sure you include the fixoutlook.org URL somewhere in the tweet. We’ll be pulling together every tweet that includes this link on the fixoutlook.org site to send a unified message to Microsoft. The more tweets, the more impact, so please start spreading the word today and encourage your friends and colleagues to do the same…”
So, if you’re tired of non-standard approaches to HTML email and want to get your email to look good, even in Outlook, get involved.
Thanks to the guys and gals working hard for us at the Email Standards Project!
This is the billion dollar question. As we’ve discussed here in the past, there are no standards for HTML email. So what looks good in one client (Yahoo) might look like [click] in another (Outlook 2007). Some email marketers, in true K.I.S.S. fashion, recommend keeping the design as basic as possible. Others hire designers to custom build a solid template to work from.
Of course, the whole thing gets even more difficult when there are email client developers, like Microsoft, actually reverting back to older HTML standards for newer email clients, like they did with Outlook 2007 which has less CSS support than the previous version of Outlook had.
But, it’s not a lost cause. There are definitely things that you can do to optimize your HTML so that it will render well in the majority of email clients.
- Test your HTML using the w3c Markup Validation Service and fix any major coding errors (like no end tags, etc.)
- Use an email testing service ($$) such as Litmus
- Do your own testing. Create a test group using as many different email addresses (i.e. Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, domain, etc.) and test your messages against them.
- Use pre-tested HTML email templates when possible.
- Implement the 9 Best Practices for Email Design
One day, thanks to the hard work of the Email Standards Project, we will all celebrate the day when all email is rendered equally. Perhaps we’ll make it an international holiday for email marketers.
Until then, good luck.
Although it isn’t really a laughing matter if you’re trying to get a nicely formatted HTML email to render successfully across various email clients; here’s a light view of what email marketers are up against today without HTML email standards in place.
* To see this and other comic strips by The Messaging Times, just click the strip.
The Email Standards Project is working hard to get email client developers and designers to implement standards for HTML email.
For more information about HTML email design and rendering, read the posts below:
