5 ms·

Rock Solid HTML Emails

63 points by bensummers 17y ago

mcormier 17y ago
I'm having major issues trying to view the page in Chrome(Windows). The page renders fine but the scrollbar is "Choppy". Something he's doing in the page is not agreeing with Chrome. Not sure if I want to take advice from someone that creates a page with such a performance issue.
- clistctrl 17y ago
  I had the same issue using Chrome.
- adamhowell 17y ago
  He's just a guest author. Drew McClellan is the guy behind 24 Ways (http://allinthehead.com/ http://allinthehead.com/) and if I remember correctly this design is a couple years old now. Sidenote, seems Chrome has now entered the "pompous Opera phase", wherein Opera users used to always ignore the fact that they're in the vast minority of web browsers and point out every browser problem they have like it's the designer's fault instead of Opera's for their random rendering bugs.
  - mcormier 17y ago
    Err, Uh. Chrome is 7% of the market, Safari is 3%, and Opera is 2%. http://www.axiis.org/examples/BrowserMarketShare.html http://www.axiis.org/examples/BrowserMarketShare.html I know Chrome is only little over a year old, but was surprised as I've never seen it or Safari (WebKit browsers) ever have trouble with a page before.
    - adamhowell 17y ago
      The chart you cited also has IE 6+7+8 market share at only 38%, that's highly inaccurate. IE is more like 60%-65%+ and Chrome is more like 2-3% (http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-daily-20090801-20090829 http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-daily-20090801-2009082...).
      - mbrubeck 17y ago
        The axiis chart is based on traffic from w3schools.com: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp That's a site for an audience of web developers, so of course it's different from a general-interest site. But 24ways.org is also for web developers, so it's probably a useful piece of input in this case. (As an aside, scrolling is perfectly smooth for me, in the latest Chrome beta on Linux.)
        adamhowell 17y ago
        If that's what you were originally intending something like "Chrome is 7% of the [web developer] market" would be a little more accurate. Anyway, I was just having some fun, 24ways is a side-project for Drew, so maybe drop him a note and let him know it looks off in Chrome and I'm sure he'll try and find the time to fix it.
      - rimantas 17y ago
        According to statistics an average american has one breast and one testicle. The chart mcormier cited is for w3schools.com There is nothing surprising that or pretty much any webdevs-oriented site has a low share of IE. Browser stats for two websites can vary wildly depending on the site itself, and even country. For example Opera is very popular in Russia—27% (http://www.rankingru.com/en/rankings/web-browsers-groups.html http://www.rankingru.com/en/rankings/web-browsers-groups.htm... ) and Ukraine where it tops the browsers chart: http://www.ranking.com.ua/en/rankings/web-browsers-groups.html http://www.ranking.com.ua/en/rankings/web-browsers-groups.ht... . Related: http://my.opera.com/dstorey/blog/2009/03/16/a-look-at-desktop-market-share-cis-edition http://my.opera.com/dstorey/blog/2009/03/16/a-look-at-deskto...
- drewmclellan 17y ago
  This is a bug with Chrome on Windows, which is apparently fixed in the latest build. The bug was exposed by our heavy use of RGBA colour, although it didn't affect earlier builds of Chrome or any other Webkit based browser.
scorxn 17y ago
Nice overview. See http://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/ http://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/ for more depth based on a much, much larger sample size.
aw3c2 17y ago
That site abuses CSS&HTML so badly that it takes all cpu to render.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- nudded 17y ago
  and who's to blame, the designer or your browser?
- cschep 17y ago
  Yes. I just had to open Task Manager to figure what the hell was going on. This box isn't amazing, but a dual core proc being pegged using Chrome to render a web page feels a bit absurd.
- ComputerGuru 17y ago
  Perfectly fine on OS X 10.6.2/Webkit 4 on this measly 13" MacBook.
- bugs 17y ago
  Firefox on linux on a slow laptop/internet connection but the site loaded rather quickly compared to sites like new york times and reuters among others
alizaki 17y ago
small tip: DONT add video to email. Spam filters will kill it. Asap.
aeroevan 17y ago
Just remember to include a text/plain message too for those of us who keep text/html in their browsers as God intended...
- diN0bot 17y ago
  do you mean include a plain text and html message...and only one will shop up depending on the email viewer? where can i find out more about this and other best practices wrt sending email newletters and progress reports to users?
  - seiji 17y ago
    Here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME#Alternative http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME#Alternative
ams6110 17y ago
Forget it. Email should be terse, and plain text, especially if it's unsolicited. Anything long or full of images and multiple fonts goes straight to the "Junk" folder.
- teej 17y ago
  Seeing advice to the tune of "don't do it because it's bad!" causes my Hacker sense to sound off alarms. I have to tell myself "You are not the average user!" three times a day, and I'm just making stupid Facebook games. HTML email is absolutely something you should test. Take 10% of your email list and hit them with an HTML-ized version of your marketing email. How did they respond? Did they buy more or less? Did they unsubscribe? Asking "Do people want an HTML email?" is the wrong question. Asking "Do people spend more from an HTML email?" is the right question. Anything less from a startup is leaving money on the table.
  - gaius 17y ago
    I have to tell myself "You are not the average user!" three times a day Exactly. I generate an awful lot of HTML email - it goes to people who want to open their Outlook in the morning and have a bunch of stuff summarized in graphs and tables. It's trivial to generate reports this way. Weirdly some people prefer their reports as an email saying "please see attached report" and the content itself in a PDF! That's easy enough too tho' shrug
  - Sukotto 17y ago
    Just beware blackberry users. Their email clients suck donkey dong. Some newer clients can handle basic html formatting (tables et.al.) though they still can't wrap text in a pleasing way. I got burned by this earlier in the year when I made the mistake of assuming business people would be able to read html-formatted email (and they were all on BB) The old chestnut about "assume" making an "ass of you and me" is true :-(
- sketerpot 17y ago
  I like having the ability to include basic formatting in emails, like italics. What I really want is not HTML email, but Markdown email. That would be just about perfect.
TravisLS 17y ago
Most CSS rules work pretty well in emails, as long as you're careful. This list details how some CSS rules work in certain rendering engines: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/ http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/
johnl 17y ago
I think the guy has a monkey on his back. But I agree with him about emails being both profitable and the importance of making the end users experience a smooth one.

63 points by bensummers 17y ago

I'm having major issues trying to view the page in Chrome(Windows). The page renders fine but the scrollbar is "Choppy". Something he's doing in the page is not agreeing with Chrome. Not sure if I want to take advice from someone that creates a page with such a performance issue.

clistctrl 17y ago
I had the same issue using Chrome.
adamhowell 17y ago
He's just a guest author. Drew McClellan is the guy behind 24 Ways (http://allinthehead.com/ http://allinthehead.com/) and if I remember correctly this design is a couple years old now. Sidenote, seems Chrome has now entered the "pompous Opera phase", wherein Opera users used to always ignore the fact that they're in the vast minority of web browsers and point out every browser problem they have like it's the designer's fault instead of Opera's for their random rendering bugs.
- mcormier 17y ago
  Err, Uh. Chrome is 7% of the market, Safari is 3%, and Opera is 2%. http://www.axiis.org/examples/BrowserMarketShare.html http://www.axiis.org/examples/BrowserMarketShare.html I know Chrome is only little over a year old, but was surprised as I've never seen it or Safari (WebKit browsers) ever have trouble with a page before.
  - adamhowell 17y ago
    The chart you cited also has IE 6+7+8 market share at only 38%, that's highly inaccurate. IE is more like 60%-65%+ and Chrome is more like 2-3% (http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-daily-20090801-20090829 http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-daily-20090801-2009082...).
    - mbrubeck 17y ago
      The axiis chart is based on traffic from w3schools.com: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp That's a site for an audience of web developers, so of course it's different from a general-interest site. But 24ways.org is also for web developers, so it's probably a useful piece of input in this case. (As an aside, scrolling is perfectly smooth for me, in the latest Chrome beta on Linux.)
      - adamhowell 17y ago
        If that's what you were originally intending something like "Chrome is 7% of the [web developer] market" would be a little more accurate. Anyway, I was just having some fun, 24ways is a side-project for Drew, so maybe drop him a note and let him know it looks off in Chrome and I'm sure he'll try and find the time to fix it.
    - rimantas 17y ago
      According to statistics an average american has one breast and one testicle. The chart mcormier cited is for w3schools.com There is nothing surprising that or pretty much any webdevs-oriented site has a low share of IE. Browser stats for two websites can vary wildly depending on the site itself, and even country. For example Opera is very popular in Russia—27% (http://www.rankingru.com/en/rankings/web-browsers-groups.html http://www.rankingru.com/en/rankings/web-browsers-groups.htm... ) and Ukraine where it tops the browsers chart: http://www.ranking.com.ua/en/rankings/web-browsers-groups.html http://www.ranking.com.ua/en/rankings/web-browsers-groups.ht... . Related: http://my.opera.com/dstorey/blog/2009/03/16/a-look-at-desktop-market-share-cis-edition http://my.opera.com/dstorey/blog/2009/03/16/a-look-at-deskto...
drewmclellan 17y ago
This is a bug with Chrome on Windows, which is apparently fixed in the latest build. The bug was exposed by our heavy use of RGBA colour, although it didn't affect earlier builds of Chrome or any other Webkit based browser.

scorxn 17y ago

Nice overview. See http://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/ http://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/ for more depth based on a much, much larger sample size.

aw3c2 17y ago

That site abuses CSS&HTML so badly that it takes all cpu to render.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
nudded 17y ago
and who's to blame, the designer or your browser?
cschep 17y ago
Yes. I just had to open Task Manager to figure what the hell was going on. This box isn't amazing, but a dual core proc being pegged using Chrome to render a web page feels a bit absurd.
ComputerGuru 17y ago
Perfectly fine on OS X 10.6.2/Webkit 4 on this measly 13" MacBook.
bugs 17y ago
Firefox on linux on a slow laptop/internet connection but the site loaded rather quickly compared to sites like new york times and reuters among others

alizaki 17y ago

small tip: DONT add video to email. Spam filters will kill it. Asap.

aeroevan 17y ago

Just remember to include a text/plain message too for those of us who keep text/html in their browsers as God intended...

diN0bot 17y ago
do you mean include a plain text and html message...and only one will shop up depending on the email viewer? where can i find out more about this and other best practices wrt sending email newletters and progress reports to users?
- seiji 17y ago
  Here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME#Alternative http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME#Alternative

ams6110 17y ago

Forget it. Email should be terse, and plain text, especially if it's unsolicited. Anything long or full of images and multiple fonts goes straight to the "Junk" folder.

teej 17y ago
Seeing advice to the tune of "don't do it because it's bad!" causes my Hacker sense to sound off alarms. I have to tell myself "You are not the average user!" three times a day, and I'm just making stupid Facebook games. HTML email is absolutely something you should test. Take 10% of your email list and hit them with an HTML-ized version of your marketing email. How did they respond? Did they buy more or less? Did they unsubscribe? Asking "Do people want an HTML email?" is the wrong question. Asking "Do people spend more from an HTML email?" is the right question. Anything less from a startup is leaving money on the table.
- gaius 17y ago
  I have to tell myself "You are not the average user!" three times a day Exactly. I generate an awful lot of HTML email - it goes to people who want to open their Outlook in the morning and have a bunch of stuff summarized in graphs and tables. It's trivial to generate reports this way. Weirdly some people prefer their reports as an email saying "please see attached report" and the content itself in a PDF! That's easy enough too tho' shrug
- Sukotto 17y ago
  Just beware blackberry users. Their email clients suck donkey dong. Some newer clients can handle basic html formatting (tables et.al.) though they still can't wrap text in a pleasing way. I got burned by this earlier in the year when I made the mistake of assuming business people would be able to read html-formatted email (and they were all on BB) The old chestnut about "assume" making an "ass of you and me" is true :-(
sketerpot 17y ago
I like having the ability to include basic formatting in emails, like italics. What I really want is not HTML email, but Markdown email. That would be just about perfect.

TravisLS 17y ago

Most CSS rules work pretty well in emails, as long as you're careful. This list details how some CSS rules work in certain rendering engines: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/ http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/

johnl 17y ago

I think the guy has a monkey on his back. But I agree with him about emails being both profitable and the importance of making the end users experience a smooth one.