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If I stand in front of my monitor and shout “email standards” three times, will they appear?
If you've been involved in email development for any length of time, you know how it works. Some clients support interactivity, some don't. Other clients display web fonts, some don't. And then there are the select few that don't support anything at all and require special code to work.
What if we didn’t have to worry about this in the future?
I'm excited to tell you about a new community-led initiative called the Email Markup Consortium. The EMC is “working to improve the usability, accessibility, performance, consistency, and reliability of email markup.”
Led by Hussein Al Hammad, Mark Robbins and Alice Li, the group aims to work with developers, email tools and email clients to advance EMC's vision at every step of the email journey.
Read an EMC blog post by Hussein to learn even more about the group's goals and plans.
Here is what Alice had to say in a press release announcing the new working group:
“From the moment HTML was supported in email, militant developers have worked tirelessly toward the simple goal of creating beautiful designs for it.
“For decades, we've cobbled together outdated code and passed extensive markup snippets to each other through various backroom channels to achieve pixel-perfect results in the most obscure email clients. Now it's time to enable greater collaboration between the email community and vendors to improve email standards.”
~ Alice Li, Squarespace/EMC Administrator
Of course, she's absolutely right. We've had web standards and software development standards for years, and it's time for email to do the same.
Let's face it: Sinch Email on Acid might not exist if it weren't for the rendering issues that email clients like Outlook cause. But we've always been big advocates of solving the biggest challenges in email, and standards for email development would be a huge step in the right direction.
How can you get involved?
Visit the Email Markup Consortium website (emailmarkup.org) and register to become a member.
The group keeps you up to date on upcoming developments and can ask members for ideas and advice. You support the effort to make the inbox a better place for subscribers and make email development less frustrating and more effective. You can also join the discussion about email standards on GitHub.
In the meantime, continue to test and optimize each email every time and do your best to deliver perfect emails.
Author: Megan Boshuyzen
Megan is a graphic designer and email developer who has dabbled in all aspects of email marketing. She believes that good emails for good causes make a positive difference in the world. Megan currently works as an email developer for Sinch Email. Visit her website to learn more at megbosh.com.
Create your very own Auto Publish News/Blog Site and Earn Passive Income in Just 4 Easy Steps
