Don’t get me wrong, I believe in HTML email. Email marketing is a big part of my livelihood. But sometimes I despair of ever finding someone who can quickly, easily and happily create HTML emails that render in the majority of email clients.
Why’s that? Because it ain’t clever, it ain’t sexy and it’s certainly not cutting edge. In techie terms, you need to know how to (horror!) hand code good old basic HTML using tables and inline styles. While web design has moved forward over the years, email design has been forced to stay in the 1999 doldrums. Kids just don’t learn that tables stuff any more.
But unlike me (who just moans about it and secretly enjoys the challenge of all those nested tables) some people are actually campaigning for positive change – The Email Standards Project is all about persuading email client developers and the design community to improve web standards support and accessibility in email. There’s a ‘name and shame’ list on their site which flags up the biggest offenders.
Latest news is that they’ve got an ‘in’ with a kind Google developer who’s going to look into the way that Gmail renders its HTML emails. They got Google’s attention with a mass gurning appeal. Nice one – let’s all refuse to grin and bear it!