In my recent email marketing research, I stumbled upon a group that’s trying to change the way email clients (ie Hotmail, Yahoo, Outlook) display HTML emails. It’s a huge undertaking that requires everyone to work together to create a set of web standards that email designers can work with.
Currently, those designers are forced to use ‘90s technologies to create the attention-grabbing emails we all know and love, but they are also forced to deal with 12+ different email clients that all display their lovely message differently. As one of these designers, it’s hard not to pull my hair out every time I layout an email.
The Email Standards Project is still in its infancy and needs people to spread the word about web standards. Their mission is “…that some time in the future web designers will be able to rely on a solid, consistent level of web standards support when designing and building HTML emails.” On their site, http://www.email-standards.org/, you can view screen shots from every major email client to see exactly how different the same HTML email is displayed, and why, in our tech-heavy society, this is such an important thing to fix.
The Email Standards Project may not be saving children in the Sudan, however it’s trying to make the online world a nicer place to design for and interact with. Please pass their website on to other designers or email connoisseurs that would be interested in a standard future.
