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It's HN, so I'm not surprised by the old "just send text" argument that always gets wheeled out when this topic come up, but for those not in a terminal all day
by hifix 3y ago
It's HN, so I'm not surprised by the old "just send text" argument that always gets wheeled out when this topic come up, but for those not in a terminal all day there are valid reasons to format HTML emails (that don't include marketing).
We send out HTML emails and reports to our users that make use of progress bars, lists, photos, colours etc and they love them. They can get quick full updates on their business without having to leave their mailbox. Pretty hard to do that in plain text.
- progfix 3y agoWhy don't you send PDFs?
- conception 3y agoThe faster you get to what a user wants or has to review in an email, the more likely they’ll read it.
- dreamcompiler 3y agoI read a lot of email on mobile, and PDFs on mobile are a terrible experience. If I see a PDF attachment in an email, I don't even bother opening it unless it's something I was expecting.
- hifix 3y agoFair point, and we do generate PDFs elsewhere for similar reports but the general feedback from users is that they want to have the data available directly in the email.
- BarbaryCoast 3y agoI am a "just send text" guy. But you are correct; users like HTML and no one, like the author of this blog post, even remember that Internet messages are all plain 7-bit ASCII. I don't mind the HTML as much as I mind the Javascript inside them, or the web bugs that are included. Those are privacy and security issues. So I've adapted to the reality that "email client" is now a web page on a service somewhere, and "email message" is another web page. I don't have to like it, I don't have to use it, but raging against it is a waste of everyone's time.