[LINK] E-mail is not a platform for design

[Ivan Trundle]

(A refreshing perspective from Jeffrey Zeldman's blog - http:// 
www.zeldman.com)

E-mail is not a platform for design

All these years of internet use later, HTML mail still sucks. You may  
think I mean “HTML mail doesn’t work properly in some e-mail  
clients.” And that statement is certainly true. Companies spend hours  
crafting layouts that may not work in Eudora or Gmail, or may no  
longer work in Outlook.

Even in programs that support the crap code used to create these  
layouts, all that hard visual work will go unseen if the user has  
unchecked “View HTML Mail” in their preferences.

As for CSS, it is partially supported in some e-mail applications and  
in web apps like Gmail, but only if you author in nonsemantic table  
layouts and bandwidth-wasting inline CSS. Which is like using a  
broken refrigerator to store food at room temperature.

But when I say HTML mail still sucks, I don’t mean it sucks because  
support for design in e-mail today is like support for standards in  
web browsers in 1998.

I mean it sucks because nobody needs it. It impedes rather than aids  
communication.

E-mail was invented so people could quickly exchange text messages  
over fast or slow or really slow connections, using simple, non- 
processor-intensive applications on any computing platform, or using  
phones, or hand-held devices, or almost anything else that can  
display text and permits typing.

That’s what e-mail is for. That’s why it’s great.

E-mail is not a platform for design. Unlike the web, which also  
started as an exchange medium for text messages but which benefited  
from the inclusion of images and other media, e-mail works best when  
used for its original purpose, as the most basic of content exchange  
systems.

“Designed” e-mail is just a slightly more polished version of those  
messages your uncle sends you. Your uncle thinks 18pt bright red  
Comic Sans looks great, so he sends e-mail messages formatted that  
way. You cluck your tongue, or sigh, or run de-formatting scripts on  
every message you receive from him. When your uncle is the  
“designer,” you “get” why styled mail sucks. It sucks just as much  
when you design it, even if it looks better than your uncle’s work in  
the two e-mail programs that support it correctly.

Even though it doesn’t work right in many e-mail applications, and  
even though many users dislike it, HTML appeals to clients because  
it’s another place to stick their logo. And it appeals to the kind of  
designer who thinks everything, even a bullet hurtling toward his own  
skull, would improve if decorated. I hate that kind of designer  
almost as much as I hate people who hate design. That kind of  
designer gives all designers a bad name, and is chiefly responsible  
for the slightly amused contempt with which many business people view  
designers, art directors, and “creative” people generally.

Say it with me: HTML is for websites. CSS is for websites. GIFs and  
JPEGs are for websites.

ASCII means never having to say you’re sorry.