Re: New version of Outlook to block webserved graphics?

From: Tod Foley <oa_at_asifproductions.com>
Date: Mon 29 Sep 2003 16:53:46 -0500

At 12:00 AM 9/27/03 -0500, Aric Boyles wrote:
>Considering the current usage levels of Outlook as an email client (#1 or #2
>last time i checked), what do you think this will mean to legitimate email
>marketing efforts?

It means that your HTML email should be designed to degrade gracefully
("graceful degredation" is a programmer's term meaning that the content is
coded so that, even if the user's software is not the optimal platform -
even if it's the third or fourth most optimal platform - the appearance of
the message is still presented in a meaningful, understandable and useable
way). For email marketers, the single biggest area that must be addressed
is probably imbedded graphics. But at least a missing graphic doesn't
(usually) harm readability. Tables - especially nested tables and tables
with layouts that are more column-based than row-based - are really the
most complex issue whose degredation absolutely must be addressed in a
quality design. After that would probably be style tags and specific
fonts. There are all sorts of tricks and techniques you can use to achieve
graceful degredation, and your webmaster should be familiar with them. The
point is, if you don't design your emails to degrade gracefully, you're
already losing more potential customers than you should consider
reasonable. You should look at your emails using the AOL mail reader, for
instance, and look at them while you are offline with a clear cache. And
look at them using Eudora with the MS viewer turned off. If you really
want to be considerate of everyone, telnet into your ISP and look at them
using PINE (that's probably overkill, but it sure will show you how much
you depend on HTML).

LVX
TF


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Received on Mon Sep 29 2003 - 16:53:46 CDT