Slashdot Mirror
Is HTML E-mail Still Evil?
Charlie Campbell asks: "My boss is pretty adamant about getting HTML newsletters to our clients; and, I'm pretty adamant about finding an alternative. I can understand the benefits in HTML mail from a designer's (mine) and marketing standpoint (that of my boss); yet, based on foreseeable issues with recipient software, mail filters, dial-up connections, etc. I feel that the risks outweigh the benefits. We've all heard this a million times... but is it now an outdated concern? Should I trust our client-base to be fully equipped for such a mailer? Should I worry about improper delivery marring our professional image? Is there anyone documenting the issue from a current-day perspective?"
P.S. Suggestion: default to plain text because HTML is, in fact, evil.
Speak truth to power.
Hopefully your *Usenet boldface marks* were intentional :)
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
If you are going to do it, make sure it looks OK without the images. My client gives me the option to load the images and, quite frankly, I never do.
In e-mail, I want the content, not fucking bling-bling.
If I wanted to SEE your product, I'd go you to your web site.
And shit like company banners and the like just piss me off to no end.
Finally, the tracker images. These, like read recipt, are of the devil. Read recipt is disabled in my client. My boss wants to know why I never read any of his e-mails. I tell him I do, but WHEN I read it is none of his fucking buisness.
Same for you. If I catch you tracking when I open an e-mail using something like http:\\server\images\myemailaddy\blank.gif, you'll be filtered. In fact, if I get any kind of weird feeling about the e-mail at all, you'll be filtered.
Make sure you understand that my client may be displayed in a preview frame. Don't expect me to open the item and maximixe it to read it. If it doesn't display properly in the frame, I won't scroll sideways to read it.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
Newspapers neither cost more nor take longer to read the more images they contain.
Going to a movie theatre doesn't include a hidden bug at the start of the movie that confirms to some marketing droid that I'm a real person and they should feel free to spam my future visits with an extra 30 minutes of commercials before the movie starts.
And speaking as a former modem user who hasn't had broadband for that long, I promise you Slashdot is perfectly usable and just as informative/interesting with images disabled.
The grandparent was right on the money. E-mail is a text medium. If you can't tell me something through that medium, then chances are I don't want your e-mail. In fact, and this is a very good reason that businesses should not send HTML e-mails without an explicit request, your e-mail will get a huge negative score on my Bayesian anti-spam filter just for having it. That applies whether it's alone or combined with a separate text-only version, though if the text-only version matches the HTML content closely the penalty isn't so great. Moreover, even if it gets through the filter, it'll get rendered as plain text anyway, and therefore probably look worse than it would have done if you'd just sent me that in the first place. It's not exactly likely to improve your sales/feedback level/customer satisfaction/whatever on either count...
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
- There is no accepted and implemented standard for word wrapping. There is "wrap at 72, quote to 80", which to few know how to get right to avoid comb quoting, and there is format: flowed, which too many clients don't implement correctly. HTML mail has no problems with word wrapping, as it is an essential part of HTML.
- Special character encoding. Umlauts and other 8-bit characters still don't display right in many combinations of MUAs and MTAs. HTML has character entities and charset declarations, not umpteen escape schemes.
- Alignment. Plaintext email users often align content with spaces. This doesn't work when the recipient uses a proportional font. HTML mails support proper content alignment without sacrificing the better readability of a proportional font.
- Structure. In HTML, different sized headers, lists and other markup allow much more user friendly structuring of the text.
It's really a shame that instead of working on defining an email-friendly subset of HTML, many users declare that plaintext email is the be all end all of email.The opposite. Send a text version, and have a link encouraging recipients to see the HTML version in all its glory, on a web page, where HTML is supposed to be used. Some nesletters I get do exactly this. For those who like HTML, it's only a click away, and is much more efficient all around. Your marketing guy can use Flash, play music or whatever crap takes their fancy. Also tell the PHB that it's less likely to be flagged as spam.