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The easiest way for designers to send email newsletters for themselves and their clients.

Future of Web Design report

Posted by Mathew Patterson on November 15, 2007 3:00 PM

Last week I spoke at the Future of Web Design conference in New York City, on the topic of email design. It was my first visit to the States, which is a mere 20 hour flight away from Sydney.

The conference itself had a great line-up of speakers, and though it was unfortunately hit by a few technical issues it went off well in the end. As always, hallway and after party conversations yielded as much or more value as the talks did.

My segment took place in the afternoon and I discussed the general state of HTML email since 1998, and it's potential for the future. Below are my slides, which don't make as much sense without the audio, but I've also included a recap of the major points.

[UPDATE]: The audio of my talk is now available from the conference website. Here is the direct link: The future of email design - 22mb MP3 file.

The future of email design: an outline

The cool kids don't like HTML email

Standards based web designers have taken a 'Just Say No' approach to HTML emails typically. During the talk I asked "how many people hate HTML email?" and it was about 50% of attendees.

It doesn't matter

We don't get to decide how people use technologies - the end users have already voted, and they like using HTML emails. There is good reasons for it too, including Jakob Nielsen's findings that return on investment for email newsletters beats almost anything else.

HTML email can be a better experience

If you signup for an email from Threadless, you probably want to know what new t-shirts are available each week. Having a photo of the new designs is a much faster way than trying to describe it in text. HTML can make a message clearer and easier to understand.

Back to the future

The Web Standards Project stepped into the Browser Wars in 1998, and applied pressure that led to much better standards support in web browsers and from web designers. Unfortunately, HTML email was left behind.

Clients live in an alternate reality

Your clients and bosses think everyone will be so thrilled to receive and pore through your emails, but the reality is that people are very busy and have very little attention to give their email. Web designers need to help move their clients from magical fairy land to an understanding of reality.

Understanding email

An inbox is a very noisy place, and you may only have the tiny subject line or preview pane to make your case in. It's a different context than a web browser, and you need to design accordingly.

Permission + relevance = attention

It's no longer enough just to have technical permission to send to people. The content you send them needs to be relevant too, as opposed to the 'Sims Credit Card' invitations I get from Electronic Arts! Your clients want attention for their message, so they need to have permission and offer relevance.

Love your text

Being able to control typography with proper headings, line spacing and emphasis is the key benefit of moving to HTML. You don't need to rely on *hacky* punctuation ______ to make your point. You should spend most of your time making the text readable and clear.

Slot in the permission reminder, unsubscribe and contact details

Those are elements that should be in every email, and you need to design with that in mind.

Be creative

Once you have the core of well formatted text and mandatory elements you can build out your design. Check out our design gallery for some great ideas.

Design like it's 1999

You might need to go back to using tables for consistency, and design knowing your images and css might not be applied. Check out the CSS support chart and testing tool for some help.

Email is dead?

Email isn't dead, it's just a bit fat. Designing HTML emails is hard and painful, which is why we have started the Email Standards Project to improve the situation. The future of email is in better, faster, smarter tools to handle the increasing volume. In addition, it is businesses sending smarter, more targeted emails that offer more value and less time wasting.

Web applications will become better integrated with email, so we don't have to double handle information anymore.

HTML email is not going away

HTML emails will be sent out, and somebody will design them. It should be web designers.

Thanks to all the Campaign Monitor and MailBuild customers who came up to say hello, and thanks to everyone who attended the talk. If you have any questions or feedback for me, just leave a comment or get in touch.

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