Comments on: Standards, Semantics, Accessibility, and HTML Email

By: What is HTML Email?

What is HTML Email? — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 15:40:03 +0000

lease don’t encourage users to post HTML Email. It’s dangerous, takes up resources, and is not accessible. Even if it can be done correctly, it seldom is. Like putting metal in the microwave. It’s often better to say “don’t” than to teach people to do it properly.

By: Jon

Jon — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 03:26:51 +0000

@Gort: As far as HTML emails are concerned — maybe. There are times when it comes down to client orders having to be followed and CSS support just isn’t there as far as email clients are concerned. The decision by Microsoft to resort to Word rendering in Office 2007 for HTML emails goes to say that things are headed in an awful direction as it is. I can’t accept it when it comes to the Web, however. Thanks for taking the time to post your thought.

By: Gort

Gort — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 17:32:24 +0000

I am a UI designer; I espouse the use of CSS and forward thinking markup; however, tables are not dead and are still a reliable construct for getting things done. CSS still has a way to go before tables are fully written off. Accept it.

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 03:51:19 +0000

@Justin Kistner: You’re absolutely right about CSS inconsistencies between clients. If a client is being completely specific about how they want their HTML email to look then sure, using tables for layout can become a necessity.

@Peter Scott: You bring up a great point, Lotus Notes is still used extensively, and as a few have said before, sometimes you just have to buckle down and use tables to get something right for a paying client. Unfortunately that will probably be how it is for some time to come as well.

By: Peter Scott

Peter Scott — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 14:05:14 +0000

A business email application still in widespread use is Lotus Notes, which will throw your carefully coded CSS all over the show. To achieve any sort of layout which will work across multiple email applications you have to use tables – it’s unfortunate, I know, but utterly unavoidable if you are going to allow Notes users to read your html emails. You also have to use old-style font tags in your markup for Notes – not good news.

By: Justin Kistner

Justin Kistner — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 07:56:15 +0000

CSS support among email clients is really poor and inconsistent. I am a huge standards proponent, but HTML emails are no place for positioning CSS. Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t still use semantic markup, but when it comes to layout, tables are still the best for the greatest compatibility.

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 22:42:45 +0000

@Dan: You’re definitely not alone in your stance, which is exactly why the people behind HTML emails need to ensure that you see a message with the same value as someone who does prefer to read HTML email.

@Michael Chase: Absolutely… I also remember back to the days of Eudora. It’s funny how it usually takes the masses a bit of time tor realize that something is causing more trouble than good.

@Mark Reeder: You are absolutely right. If anybody thought supporting multiple Web browsers was too tough to handle, they shouldn’t be working with HTML email. Just about every client (Web based or otherwise) will treat an HTML/CSS email differently. You’re right, sometimes a project will come down to a tabular layout to please a client.

@Russel James Smith: You’re completely justified in saying that you can’t trust CSS to any extent in an HTML email. Keeping the design simple is essential to a successful campaign.

@Jared Cornwall: You may be correct in saying that HTML/CSS based emails could become more common and better supported over the coming years, but that is probably quite a way down the line unfortunately. We can always hope, though. Personally, I don’t have any experience with Campaign Monitor but the articles posted to the site are often well written and very comprehensive.

@Leonardo Ribeiro: Definitely, I’ve come across a few ‘guidelines’ for designing HTML emails in that you should keep widths to a number hovering around 560px and a few other tips and tricks. It’s always good practice to offer a plain text alternative.

By: Leonardo Ribeiro

Leonardo Ribeiro — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 22:14:17 +0000

I always use narrow widths to fit webmail space and inline css.
I also provide plain text alternative text, but I’m not sure about embedding images.

By: Jared Cornwall

Jared Cornwall — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 20:21:00 +0000

I prefer receiving a well designed HTML email as opposed to basic text. I think HTML emails will become more common and email clients with support creating and receiving HTML emails, eventually.

I also end up using table based layouts with inline styles to make HTML emails work in the widest range of email clients.

The thing that has made my job the easiest for sending HTML email campaigns is using Campaign Monitor (as mentioned). Great tool and good resource for information.

By: Russell James Smith

Russell James Smith — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 18:06:46 +0000

I agree with many of the sentiments behind this article.

But, I’ve worked creating customer marketing emails for various large clients over the last few years and I’m sorry to say I still feel that it’s all but impossible to use CSS to any great extent.

The worst offenders for not supporting CSS are the webmail clients such as Hotmail (Livemail) and G-Mail and when we look at our clients data we often see that as many as 75% of customers are using webmail providers.

Currently when our clients require a grid-layout in an email to display products; going back to tables is the only answer (with of course a text only alternative (usualy sent in a mulit-part message)). I do hope the situation changes in the near future.

To get the ball rolling if somebody could point me at any references that could gave me some amunition for dissuading clients from sending marketing email based on table-layouts I’d be very happy to start evangelising CSS based emails (as I did with CSS based web pages quite a few years back).