Design and emailing: The principle of acceptable degradation

published on 04/11/2013,

updated on 18/04/2023

In this article, I'm not going to tell you that "The best is the enemy of the good" (well, it's already done) and I'm not going to tell you that you have to be a perfectionist to the point of being stupid (certainly not)!

Does your email have to display the same way for all your subscribers?

The various emailing professions are very often segmented, and it's rare for real experts to be present in companies. The marketer has to deal with all channels at the same time, the desginer does more banners than emailing, and the HTML integrator has to know how to do everything: integrate for the web, for mobile, do a bit of SQL, a bit of design and lots of other things. In this type of organization, it's not easy to develop specific emailing skills. Only very large companies are able to set up teams dedicated to the different channels (which is not always a good thing if these teams are too compartmentalized). redesign a newsletter Unlike other media, in emailing it's very difficult, if not impossible, to obtain the same rendering of your email in all environments. There are major differences between different webmails, between different software and nowadays between different mobile terminals. So you have to make concessions... and think about these concessions right from the start of the project.

Reduce functionality to provide an equal experience for everyone?

A frequently used approach is to reduce the functionality of the email in order to get the most uniform experience possible. If you're a fan of minimalism or flat design anyway, no problem, this is a technique that should suit you perfectly. However, if your brand and its graphic charter require a more complex desgin, it would be a shame to lose this richness under the pretext that all your subscribers must receive a similar email.

Making the most of email clients that allow it: Acceptable degradation

This is where the principle of acceptable degradation comes in. If it is impossible For example, not all email clients allow the display of a background image. But for those that don't, it's possible to define a background color that will replace this image. There will therefore be an "acceptable" degradation of the basic design, one that will not significantly affect the user experience. emailing-button-shadow-arrondi

Another example is that CSS3 (a recent standard for formatting HTML) is not available in all email clients. This does not mean that you cannot use shadows, gradients or rounded edges in your emails. You just have to accept that these features will not be displayed everywhere and provide an alternative.

Three steps to define what is acceptable

The principle of acceptable degradation cannot be done randomly. You should try to anticipate your needs when creating your briefing. Here are three steps that can guide you:

Define what are the essential elements of your email, those that should be displayed correctly, be visible and are useful for the reader
Check which email clients are the most used by your subscribers ... anticipating the future evolution of your audience in order to give energy where it is most useful.
Stay focused on the action rather than the "beauty" of your creation. A newsletter or a promo email must be useful before being aesthetic (even if the aesthetics participate in the usefulness of your email).

By applying these three steps and, above all, specifying them in your brief, the designer's and integrator's work will be considerably simpler. What's more, you'll know in advance where you're going, and you'll avoid any disappointment with the final result.Photo credit: Clem Rutter, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported

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The author

Jonathan Loriaux

I've been involved in email marketing for over ten years, and my career path began on the technical side (email campaign integration) before moving on to sales (as an eCRM expert) and finally marketing consultancy. For the past 9 years, I've been the author of the Badsender.com blog. Emailing isn't just an expertise, it's truly become my passion, which is why Badsender is now my main activity, with the creation of an emailing consulting business linked to the site.

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