An e-Dialog Position Paper for the W3C HTML Mail Workshop E-mail vs. Web – A Tactical + Technical Design Paradox Written by: Jim Kelley & Sarah Davies | May 1, 2007 E-mail is a very powerful and often understated medium. It’s still rather new… yet an evolving advertising form - highly relevant, measurable, sophisticated, and innovative as it mixes the authoring technologies of the Web with conventional, offline direct marketing principles. In this day and age however… identifying yourself as an “E-mail Designer” can confuse people simply because most identify with the title “Web Designer.” But here’s the thing, Web and e-mail design currently do operate within a completely different set of coding and design practices. Now why is that? And as a creative professional why should I care? E-mail -- Communications “Lowest Common Denominator” :: A primary attraction of the Web is that it allows the user to gain control over the content. That is not always the case within e-mail. Page composition is an important aspect in e-mail where form and content -- the how and what -- come together to drive a particular communications or marketing message. A designer considers many things; audience, eye flow, readability, real-estate, and brand affinity; intending a design to look a certain way. Having control over and managing that look and feel can be a significant challenge. As in any medium, without formalized standards the final design of any communication isn’t truly guaranteed – especially within e-mail. Many user-based variables can change its composition, such as monitor size, resolution, operating system (OS), and most importantly the e-mail client/application the recipient is utilizing. Designing an all “image-based” solution can certainly preserve form and most of all brand integrity, but it comes across as “spammy”… and results have proven that an optimal combination of text and imagery performs better overall. So, we make this one of our many best-practice techniques when it comes to designing and coding for that "lowest common denominator" in e-mail. Designing and coding for that “lowest common denominator,” means developing for that particular e-mail client or browser which renders HTML the worst. If it looks good there, great, we’re then looking at about 90% compatibility across the remaining applications. Because of increased privacy and security settings around the inbox, due mostly to viruses and spam, most of the valuable design information gets stripped out. Flash, video and JavaScript are definitely out of the equation. Some people can see this content, but most receive a security warning popup… not an optimal user-experience. So what about accessibility? Alt tags are still not enough. Sometimes they don’t even work. CSS, the appropriate way to code within HTML or for the Web and other devices, doesn’t work everywhere. Using tables for layout is a thing of the past for Web sites, yet they currently remain e-mail's best friend. Form functionality is fading fast as well… and now animated GIFs and even background images have been impacted. Simply put – our current coding techniques used in today’s e-mail communications lives in the late 90’s, where even the most classic and basic of HTML is hard to produce. Challenges We Face Today :: Because of all these variables, coding practices currently differ significantly between Web and e-mail development. An immediate solution would be for us to design and develop separate e-mails to target each Web or desktop-based e-mail client that exists, perhaps adhering to a more “Graded Browser Support” strategy, an approach to dealing with the variety of browsers used by users and their widely varying capabilities. Due to time constraints and the typical commodity-based environment that is e-mail, it is not a cost effective approach the industry could absorb. Furthermore, we are not even sure how people are viewing their e-mails. Even if they’re using a popular Web-mail client, we still don’t know if they’re downloading the mail to their desktop or viewing it on a mobile device. Moving e-mail Forward :: Progression - and certainly a needed evolution - of e-mail rendering engines, compatible with today’s HTML & CSS standards is critical to moving this medium forward. Right now however, elegant degradation of code in e-mail is simply not an option. Until this occurs, e-marketing professionals need to understand that e-mails are not Web sites, and the same rules around technical functionality currently DO NOT apply. Not yet! What It All Comes Down To :: E-mail – as a communications medium needs to be spoken for in a completely different context when it comes to “tactical” execution…as compared to the Web. But “technically” HTML for both mediums should be consistent. Education around these tactical and technical differences will need to be enhanced even further if we are to see change. To start, Web and desktop-based e-mail clients will need to make drastic changes within their applications for broader acceptance and support of standardized HTML & CSS coding practices. These standardized design and development techniques will help guarantee improved compatibility across varying systems, and help to bring this true 1-to-1 medium out of the dark ages. Written by: Jim Kelley - Creative Production Manager Sarah Davies - Senior Designer About e-Dialog :: Established in 1997, e-Dialog is a proven provider of advanced e-mail marketing services and solutions. Through a unique combination of marketing intelligence and precise relevance technology, e-Dialog enables some of the world's most recognized brands, such as American Eagle Outfitters, Avis, BMG Music Service, British Airways, the NFL, Reuters, The TJX Companies, and Tesco to maximize long-term customer value with contextually targeted communications. The company's service offerings empower large, multifaceted companies like these to enhance permission-based e-mail marketing efforts through fully integrated, cross-channel communications, including dynamically printed direct mail, RSS and mobile messaging. JupiterResearch ranked e-Dialog the top performing e-mail marketing provider among service-oriented ESPs based on business value and market suitability in both 2005 and 2006. In September 2006 e-Dialog was the first e-mail service provider to achieve certification for ISO 27001:2005, the global information security standard. e-Dialog is a privately-held company with offices in Boston, London, New York and Seattle. Investors include Flagship Ventures and Commonwealth Capital. For more information, visit www.e-dialog.com or contact Arthur Sweetser at 781-372-3353 or Peter Duffy at +44 (0) 20 7659 2716. © e-Dialog 2007.  All rights reserved.