November 28th, 2007 | No Comments
Email Standards Project Launches
HTML email is a thorny subject.
Some people love it, others hate it. Whatever your point of view, the fact remains that whilst it is an available option, and an option that can generate income for businesses, then web developers will have to design them.
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of having to put together a HTML eshot, you’ll know how difficult it can be to ensure a consistent design across the multitude of email clients that are out there. And for web standards-savvy developers, the return to tables for layout and inline styles might seem like a backward step, but it’s a necessary evil.
This is where the Email Standards Project comes in.
The Email Standards Project works with email client developers and the design community to improve web standards support and accessibility in email. Our goal is to help designers understand why web standards are so important for email, while working with email client developers to ensure that emails render consistently. This is a community effort to improve the email experience for both designers and readers alike.
For my own sanity’s sake at least, I’m hoping that the project can start to make some progress with email client developers. Getting all of the different providers to agree on a set of standards will not be easy, so whilst I don’t expect standards to come to all overnight, if we can at least work towards a basic set of standards it will designers lives easier, and hopefully improve the medium for those who wish to receive HTML email.
WV4 is the online home of Rob Lewis, featuring a blog covering a variety of subjects, mainly web design, CSS and PHP, as well as featuring useful links to other websites.