Re: identified focus areas

Hi all,

Great reading everyone's initial thoughts here on the many challenges around HTML email. The lack of consistency in rendering across email clients is far beyond what the situation has ever been for web browsers, so this new initiative is most welcome.

In 2007, the Email Standards Project reached out to the email designer/developer community for input on which CSS properties email clients should be expected to support correctly:
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/post/2465/help-us-form-a-baseline-for-st

This turned into an Acid test of a conservative set of properties, which is now outdated, but which seemed worth mentioning before embarking on the new spec:
http://www.email-standards.org/acid-test/

A few of the major players took notice and made the suggested adjustments. But for most developers of email clients both prominent and peripheral, email rendering remains extremely low priority. This is disappointing but understandable, since there aren't huge incentives for them to invest in good email rendering. According to my anecdotal observations, the average user isn't aware of these issues at all, and even speaking for myself, other functionality often outweighs HTML/CSS standards compliance when choosing an email client.

If possible, I really think that getting members from several email client teams involved here from the start would be ideal, as they know the challenges that lead to the current state of things and they're in the best position to define what's feasible. I'd be interested in hearing any thoughts on how to reach out to the right people and make that happen.

Cheers,
Stig

Received on Friday, 31 January 2014 08:59:23 UTC