Designing a modern email

Post by Demiurge » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 9:14 PM UTC

dsabanin wrote: post #39

Demiurge wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HTML as a technology to render plain text obviously isn't getting in the way, because it's plain text. All the features of HTML beyond that get in the way by obscuring the plain text and the information plain text conveys. In my mind, email, or text communication, is not about presentation but is about textual content. If you want to deliver media or style or a visual presentation, it's just not email. I would strong…

Communication can include colors, images and videos. I don't see any reason why these can't or shouldn't be available inside an email. The more ways you have to convey the information, the better, imo.

Post by Aardwolf » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 9:17 PM UTC

benihana wrote: post #47

acuozzo wrote: post #3

Nobody wants to receive e-mails like this.

Since you enjoy speaking in absolutes, I'll speak your language. You're wrong. Millions of people not only ask for emails like this, they enjoy them and engage them, and companies all over the world have conversion data showing that people want to get emails like this and use them to purchase things. Nice try though.

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 9:24 PM UTC

benihana wrote: post #52

B5geek wrote: post #6

Html in email is bad.evil.wrong.stupid. When will these people get it?

I'm surprised you can access hacker news back there in 1994.

Post by manicbovine » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 9:39 PM UTC

nivla wrote: post #30

acuozzo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I read the entire post from beginning to end. I still wholeheartedly believe that nobody wants e-mails like this. Yes, I'm speaking in absolutes and yes, I don't give a damn. > If you don't want them, it doesn't mean nobody does. Correct. I chose to speak in absolutes to make a point. > There's also an unsubscribe link at the bottom. That's wonderful, but I'm pretty sure the terminal emulator I'm running Alpine…

Curious, without HTML do you expect everyone to copy-paste confirmation and password reset links? How do you account for broken links due to message truncate or unicode rendering? What about aligning various sections of the message? Controlling the font size of header, body and footer? HTML has as much history in emails as it does in the web. Taking HTML out of email is as hard as trying to take the Smart Phone out o…

Post by efedorenko » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 9:46 PM UTC

jmharvey wrote: post #35

If the goal is to make an email feel like it's written by a human being, why not emulate what human emails actually look like? Does the author photo actually make it feel more human, or less? I can't think of a time I've ever gotten a real-person email that included a picture of the sender.