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Responsive HTML Emails: a Different Strategy

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Re: Responsive HTML Emails: a Different Strategy

#11

Post by Keats »

ecesena wrote: post #6

Awesome, thanks! There should be more about responsive emails, both in terms of information and default templates. One of the bests to my knowledge is by Zurb [1], but the lack for Outlook support makes it almost unusable (at least for us). We ended up hacking from "the bigs" (Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin), although at the very beginning their templates also had issues here and there. This said, testing on so many dev…

As blowski said (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6656393), Litmus is very good for testing automatically in every possible configuration.

Re: Responsive HTML Emails: a Different Strategy

#12

Post by blowski »

Keats wrote: post #10
blowski wrote: post #8

At TechHub more than half our emails are opened on mobile (and mostly on iPhones, although there is some selective bias in there because of default image display settings). So mobile-first makes sense in every way. > We began by asking, what layouts work well on mobile? The answer for us was to think “single column.” This is nearly always the case. You can include pictures, and then use `align="right"` (or left) to m…

> I have a strange love for coding HTML emails That's a sentence I never thought I would ever hear. And I also recommend Litmus, pretty much the only sane way to test the rendering that I found.

Most of the time as a developer I am merely bluffing my way through, but with HTML email I can actually claim some degree of expertise.

Re: Responsive HTML Emails: a Different Strategy

#15

Post by benihana »

Demiurge wrote: post #5

Why can't emails just be text :(

Because the vast majority of people enjoy pretty emails with non-monospaced fonts, whitespace and colors. It's mostly hackers who want to show off how old school they are that complain about html emails. Also, most emails like this have a text version you can receive - I believe it's necessary for CANSPAM compliance.

Re: Responsive HTML Emails: a Different Strategy

#16

Post by benihana »

blowski wrote: post #8

At TechHub more than half our emails are opened on mobile (and mostly on iPhones, although there is some selective bias in there because of default image display settings). So mobile-first makes sense in every way. > We began by asking, what layouts work well on mobile? The answer for us was to think “single column.” This is nearly always the case. You can include pictures, and then use `align="right"` (or left) to m…

I actually have grown to dislike Litmus to be honest. I've sent an email to Litmus and to a device it was emulating, and it looked great on the device and busted as hell on Litmus. Leads to some false negative bugfixes.

Re: Responsive HTML Emails: a Different Strategy

#17

Post by b6 »

benihana wrote: post #15
Demiurge wrote: post #5

Why can't emails just be text :(

Because the vast majority of people enjoy pretty emails with non-monospaced fonts, whitespace and colors. It's mostly hackers who want to show off how old school they are that complain about html emails. Also, most emails like this have a text version you can receive - I believe it's necessary for CANSPAM compliance.

I very much prefer for emails to contain text only, or with HTML only as attachments, and it has absolutely zero to do with any desire to show off to other people.

For me, it's all about keeping some control over technology. I tell a very limited program like mutt what to do, and it does it. This is in contrast to begging an incredibly complicated program like a browser to do something, where much of what it is doing is controlled by invisible embedded code written by people who may be hostile toward me.

Re: Responsive HTML Emails: a Different Strategy

#18

Post by blowski »

b6 wrote: post #17
benihana wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the vast majority of people enjoy pretty emails with non-monospaced fonts, whitespace and colors. It's mostly hackers who want to show off how old school they are that complain about html emails. Also, most emails like this have a text version you can receive - I believe it's necessary for CANSPAM compliance.

I very much prefer for emails to contain text only, or with HTML only as attachments, and it has absolutely zero to do with any desire to show off to other people. For me, it's all about keeping some control over technology. I tell a very limited program like mutt what to do, and it does it. This is in contrast to begging an incredibly complicated program like a browser to do something, where much of what it is doing…

> For me, it's all about keeping some control over technology.

That's fair enough, but you are very much in a minority.

Re: Responsive HTML Emails: a Different Strategy

#19

Post by Demiurge »

benihana wrote: post #15
Demiurge wrote: post #5

Why can't emails just be text :(

Because the vast majority of people enjoy pretty emails with non-monospaced fonts, whitespace and colors. It's mostly hackers who want to show off how old school they are that complain about html emails. Also, most emails like this have a text version you can receive - I believe it's necessary for CANSPAM compliance.

I don't think anyone is better off getting graphics and colors in their email, even if they enjoy it. After all, the email is supposed to inform of something. A website can be an interactive app, but email?

Also, text-only doesn't mean monospace. I'm happy to read email in whatever sans-serif font the email client picks, with nice whitespacing.

Re: Responsive HTML Emails: a Different Strategy

#20

Post by Demiurge »

blowski wrote: post #18
b6 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much prefer for emails to contain text only, or with HTML only as attachments, and it has absolutely zero to do with any desire to show off to other people. For me, it's all about keeping some control over technology. I tell a very limited program like mutt what to do, and it does it. This is in contrast to begging an incredibly complicated program like a browser to do something, where much of what it is doing…

> For me, it's all about keeping some control over technology. That's fair enough, but you are very much in a minority.

Do you know of any usability research or somesuch that confirms this?
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