The backlash against HTML email Jun11 '07
I'm really not understanding the recent backlash against HTML email by certain notable web professionals.
Jeffrey Zeldman started it, and many other professionals are agreeing:
I'm still left wondering how I truly feel. To be honest, I've never given HTML email much thought. I've always thought it can sometimes be annoying, but the email client can usually deal with it, much like spam.
To some extent, I agree, because I wrote about Excel and Outlook formatting before, and I use similar techniques in Gmail.
For example - in Outlook, there's an option to convert all incoming email to plain text.
Also, in Gmail, before you open an HTML email, it asks you if you want to "show images." You can also set a preference to always show images from that specific sender.
Although I understand where the argument comes from, it still seems like a stretch. Whereas HTML email can be inconvenient and downright sloppy, causing poor readability - it's also somewhat avoidable in all of today's email clients.
Not to mention most email that comes across as HTML usually has an option to subscribe to only the plain text offerings.
It's all about giving the recipients the most options.
To claim it "impedes communication" is slightly hypocritical by web professionals who call themselves "designers." It's just their personal opinion/rant, not some standard that needs to be adopted by everyone.
UPDATE: The argument is that email is not the right platform for design. Perhaps I am misunderstanding the argument as "design impedes communication". Design doesn't impede communication. But they're talking about the platform for design, which makes sense, so I guess I agree.
Categories: Communication 
, Design , Email , HTML
Add Feedback (view all)
Leave feedback
matthom is published and produced by Matt Thommes - an independent publishing enthusiast, mobile blogger, content creator, informative writer, web developer from a suburb of Chicago.
Never one to conform, Matt intends to promote the effect the web has on our lives, in an effort to intensify, instruct, and clarify all that is happening around us.
Popular Pages
- Fast rounded corners in Photoshop (3954 recent visits)
- PHP – passing variables across pages (1485 recent visits)
- JavaScript set selected on load (1209 recent visits)
- Removing all child nodes from an element (827 recent visits)
- iPod songs out of order? (720 recent visits)
- Britney - Everytime piano tab (649 recent visits)
- Firefox 3 smart address bar: wildcard search (607 recent visits)
- MySQL LEFT JOIN syntax (513 recent visits)
- Breathe Me - Sia (501 recent visits)
- Tumblr: how blogging should be (384 recent visits)
Similar Entries
- Send SMS with a browser? Isn’t that email? (17 recent visits)
- Beat writer's block with email drafts, Twitter (0 recent visits)
- Web site stats via email or RSS (2 recent visits)
- Email Read Receipts: good or bad? (71 recent visits)
- Follow up - providing email and phone to merchants (1 recent visits)
- Email etiquette: new topics deserve new threads (7 recent visits)
Stats
0 unique visits since Jun11 '07