Scott Vandehey's Blog

LP Usual Defects

2008-10-07T20:24:00Z

About six month ago, we launched the first version of Stop the Usual Defects, a microsite for LP to promote the launch of their new engineered wood product, LSL. The concept was to showcase the strengths of LSL by portraying defects in traditional lumber in the style of The Usual Defects. We just reworked the site for the addition of a new trailer, and the redesign is pretty cool. The idea is to look like a detective’s corkboard with strings connecting photos of various suspects, or in our case, sections of the site. We used a new jQuery method to let the user click on the string and have the browser automatically scroll over to the next section. The tricky bit is that the site still works just fine if you disable javascript. It’s a bit of a processor hog, but I’m quite pleased with the finished effect.

Oh, and make sure you scroll down to read the movie credits. Our copywriter had a lot of fun with all the names.

I Work with a Bunch of Smartasses Part VI

2008-10-01T20:22:00Z

Pop Artist A: "I think it might be more interesting if we had several people talking in the video instead of just one."

Pop Artist B: "Yeah, maybe have them talking on the roof?"

Pop Artist C: "Drinking beer!"

Pop Artist D: "In fact, forget the video!"

Bionic Lobster

2008-09-30T16:24:00Z

We recently launched a microsite for Leatherman’s new Bionic Lobster ad campaign. The idea is that a lobster lost his claw during a struggle with a Sea Captain, but stole his Leatherman at the same time. He tied it onto the stump, and became a kind of lobster superhero, freeing his fellow crustaceans from restaurant lobster tanks and such. The site is goofy and fun, featuring the comic book and a commercial, plus a link to the Bionic Lobster’s facebook page. My favorite part is his big googly eyes.

Detroit Diesel Redesign

2008-09-23T16:19:00Z

About a month ago, we launched the new Detroit Diesel redesign. We were working on this site when I was first hired at Pop Art, and while I’m proud of the code we wrote the first time, our standards have evolved a bit over time. The opportunity to revisit the site and kick it up a notch was very exciting.

The design team and I worked closely on a bottom-up approach, where we put a lot of effort into the templates and underlying grid structure for all pages. By focusing on these aspects of the site first, rather than designing the landing pages and then interpreting those designs for all the other pages, I think we got a more coherent look to the site. Plus, the grid that was built into the pages made it extremely simple to float photos and charts into pages without having to write complicated page-specific CSS.

In addition, our copywriters rewrote all the content on the site to better match the brand’s tone of voice. Combined with the new black-and-chrome color scheme and prevalent use of large images, and I think the new site really packs a punch.

An Event Apart San Francisco 2008

2008-09-03T00:53:00Z

I’ve managed to attend An Event Apart every year so far, and this year was particularly exciting because the nearest location was in San Francisco. I went to Seattle the last two times, which was fine, but I know Seattle pretty well, so the opportunity to play tourist in a new city was very appealing to me. Luckily, my coworker Libby was coming with me, and she used to work in “the City” so I had the advantage of a guide.

(While I was there, I took hundreds of photos, and even after whittling it down, I still uploaded more than 100 to flickr. Rather than bore you with them, I’ll keep this post limited to discussion of the conference, and if you want to see dozens of photos of beautiful architecture, you can check out the photo set.)

The conference was held in the beautiful Palace Hotel on Market St. in the Financial District. My inner Blues Brothers fan had to suppress a giggle that we’d be going to the Palace Hotel Ballroom (where it’s ladies’ night!). The hotel itself is beautiful, and the dining room you see when you first walk in has an amazing ornate glass ceiling. The rooms we were in weren’t quite as nice, but even they had fancy chandeliers and the sight of hundreds of web people with their laptops and geeky t-shirts (myself included) was a bit surreal.

“If your web site structure in any way resembles your org. chart, you’ve failed.”
– Jeffrey Zeldman

Zeldman kicked things off with a bang, as usual. His modestly-titled presentation “Understanding Web Design” continued themes he touched on in previous years. He gave 12 tips for web designers, of which the first and last were “start with the user.” By focusing on the user’s needs, rather than the designer or the client, it becomes more clear how a site should function. (Though he left out the anecdote he used previously that the only other industry to call their target audience “users” is drug dealers.)

He reiterated an idea that he and Jason Santa Maria have both talked about — “sell ideas, not pixels.” Don’t go to your client with the “green comp” and the “72pt Helvetica Comp.” Go to them with the “Human Interest Comp” and the “Photographic Impact Comp.” It’s easier for clients to talk about the differences between ideas — otherwise they get hung up on design details.

Next up came Eric Meyer with a new presentation called “The Lessons of CSS Frameworks,” where he analyzed several popular CSS frameworks for what they could teach us. Long story short: Don’t use other people’s CSS frameworks except as a jumping-off point. Ideally, you should be creating your own framework. The one really fascinating thing to come out of it, though, was a discussion of the “ideal” font-sizes for headings, which he came up with by averaging the sizes across all the frameworks.

“How did you convince your organization to switch to CSS from tables? Oh really? I’m sorry.”
– Jason Santa Maria

Jason Santa Maria talked about the difficulties of designing for the web, starting with the great example of the wonderful design in Wired magazine, and how none of that design carries over to their website, which uses a completely standard template. After talking about why web designs tend to look alike, he came to the example of his recent site redesign as a way to inject some art direction into a template-driven site.

Luke Wroblewski took us through lunch, discussing visual hierarchy, and how to design a site to encourage users to see the important bits and complete the important actions. He cited eye tracking studies that show that users do not read everything on a page — they skip around like mad, looking for anything that seems relevant — and if they don’t find anything quickly, they move on.

“Being community manager is like being a pinata. People beat on you with sticks and you still have to give them candy.”
– Heather Champ

After lunch, Heather Champ came out to talk about the work she does as a community manager for flickr. I was already somewhat aware of her from reading her husband’s website, and I had seen her pop up a few times in the flickr support forums. This was the first time I’d seen her speak, and I have to say, she may be one of my new favorite web people. She is passionate, and the things she had to say about how to manage a community were equally smart and funny. I have a new appreciation for the work that goes on behind the scenes at flickr… and rereading this paragraph, perhaps a bit of a crush on the woman herself.

Liz Danzico spoke next about frameworks, and I’m ashamed to say that I got almost nothing out of her talk. The entire presentation was based on a metaphor of music notation, and I was completely lost. I don’t know anything about music notation, so her analogies might as well have been in another language. It’s too bad, because I know she’s smart, and I was looking forward to her talk.

Dan Cederholm was the last official speaker for the first day, and he talked about “Bulletproof” design. I’ve seen him speak before, and it was great, as usual, but very little new information for anyone who’s read his book or seen him speak before. Still, he got a ton of applause when he said that websites don’t need to look exactly the same in every browser.

Oddly, the day was capped by a presentation from a sponsor. It was tacked on at the end of an already long day, the introduction was brief, and probably two-thirds of the audience had already left. Scott Fegette from Adobe came out and promised that his presentation wasn’t a sales pitch for Dreamweaver (which he works on). We tried to stick it out, but it became obvious within minutes that it was a sales pitch, and we bailed like everyone else.

“Your stylesheets SUGGEST the way a website should look. The user decides how your site WILL look.”
– Jeremy Keith

Day two of the conference wasn’t quite as strong. Jeremy Keith kicked things off with a presentation about the process they use at Clearleft. It was interesting in that it’s always interesting to get a peek behind-the-scenes of another agency, but I really didn’t learn anything.

Eric Meyer went next to talk about debug and reset stylesheets. If you read his website, you’ve already seen everything we heard, but it’s always nice to see the master at work. Two things I walked out not knowing before: 1) for testing purposes, use outline: 1px solid red; rather than border because outline doesn’t affect layouts, and 2) reset stylesheets are much more popular than I thought. Probably 90% of the room raised their hands when Eric asked who used them. I don’t make CSS decisions based on the “wisdom of the crowd” but with that number of people, maybe it’s worth taking a closer look.

Derek Featherstone gave a talk called “Accessibility Beyond Compliance” which had one of the best opening lines I’ve ever heard. He walked up on stage, cleared his throat, and started with “The person on the other end of the phone said ‘I’m sorry sir, but I have to hang up now.’” He was telling a story about a blind user whose bank wouldn’t help him because he was using a screenreader — and they thought that meant there was another person in the room, violating their privacy policies.

Beyond the stories he told, which were very powerful, and helped to illustrate the point that accessibility is more than just alt attributes, the thing I walked away with was that managing focus in your web applications is incredibly important.

After lunch, Kelly Goto gave a talk about agile development. It was pretty good, and she’s a good speaker (I enjoyed a presentation I saw her give on the future of mobile at An Event Apart Seattle in 2006), but my lack of interest in agile combined with a big lunch was like a sleeping pill. No fault of hers, but I was really struggling to stay awake.

“I wore a shirt that says ‘Math is easy. Design is hard.’ You know what’s not funny at Google? That shirt.”
– Jeff Veen

Jeff Veen gave the last presentation, and I have to say, he’s probably the most compelling public speaker I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t even know where to start summarizing it. His larger theme seemed to be how to present data in such a way that users can “find their story.” He discussed infographics, from Snow’s cholera map to Minard’s Napoleon map. (When he got to that, he suggested a game called “Web Conference Bingo,” which would include the Minard map, an iPod, LOLcats, etc.) He even mentioned that the look of the charts in Google Analytics were inspired by the flyover maps from Raiders of the Lost Ark. None of this really captures the fact that he is just an amazing speaker. If you ever get a chance to see him, take it. You’ll be glad you did.

All In all, I’ve got to say that An Event Apart remains the best web conference I’ve ever attended. You definitely get your money’s worth, and even though I’ve come three years in a row, I always come away having learned a lot, and with a renewed excitement about my job. The single-track format makes a huge difference, too, because you don’t have to stress about which sessions are the best to attend, or sneaking out of a bad session to go to your second choice. Plus — and this might seem minor, but if you’ve ever been to a conference, you’ll know it’s a big deal — they take a 15-minute break between every speaker. This means time to go to the bathroom, grab a drink, and just stretch your legs for a few minutes. Plain and simple, these guys get it.

The Survey for People Who Make Websites 2008

2008-07-30T16:24:00Z

The guys over at A List Apart have posted the Survey for People Who Make Websites 2008. Despite the awkward name, this survey is worth your time if your job has anything whatsoever to do with the web. The results from last year’s survey were really interesting, and now that they’ve refined the questions a bit, this year’s should be even more informative.

Calling all designers, developers, information architects, project managers, writers, editors, marketers, and everyone else who makes websites. It is time once again to pool our information so as to begin sketching a true picture of the way our profession is practiced worldwide.

This year’s survey corrects many of last year’s mistakes, with more detailed and numerous questions for freelance contractors and owners of (or partners in) small web businesses. There are also better international categories, and many other improvements recommended by those who took the survey last year.

Mac vs PC Firefox 3 Add Bookmark Dialog

2008-07-07T21:03:00Z

One major annoyance between the Mac and PC versions of Firefox 3 is the position of the “Done” button on the Add Bookmark dialog. On a Mac, the button is on the right. On a PC, it’s on the left. I won’t comment on which is better, just that the difference breaks my muscle memory and is driving me up the wall, and causing me to lose bookmarks that I think I’ve saved.

The only saving grace here is that “Done” is the default action on both, so what I really need to do is train myself to press Enter on the keyboard instead of mousing over and clicking on the button.

IE Double-Float CSS Bug

2008-06-30T22:44:00Z

Has anyone seen this problem before and have any idea how to solve it? In firefox, the text wraps around both floats correctly. In IE6/7, the text only wraps around the second float.

I Work with a Bunch of Smartasses Part V

2008-06-27T18:35:00Z

I sent an email to the Creative Team suggesting an exchange program where a Development Team member would attend their team meeting. I ended by asking when and where their next team meeting would be. I got three replies.

Ben Fogarty: "Hey Man... We're creative. We meet on a whim. Where the wind blows us. Our sails are filled with unicorn tears and our fists the thunder of zeus."

Thom Schoenborn: "Midnight under the Burnside Bridge, west side, upon the ninth moon in the year of the comet."

Dave Selden: "Could the meeting be called a collaboration conflagration? Meeting is so business-y."

WebVisions 2008

2008-05-28T00:24:00Z

WebVisions is a Portland-based web conference that I’ve attended twice before. Sadly, due to a crisis at the office, I was only able to attend the first day of sessions this year, which means I missed Andy Baio’s presentation on internet memes and Jeffrey Veen’s keynote.

What I did see was good, but not great. In a nutshell, I think that WebVisions is a B-grade conference that’s trying desperately to become an A-grade one. It has moments of greatness, and manages to attract some excellent speakers every year — but it’s rough around the edges, and the quality of the non-superstar sessions is sometimes startlingly bad.

Last year, I really came down heavily on Jina Bolton, a talented designer from Apple, who was giving her first major presentation. While the content was pretty solid, she had a slew of technical problems which combined with her first-time jitters to make her presentation very rough. When I wrote about it, I commented that her apparent lack of preparation made her come off as unprofessional, and I said she should have rehearsed. Jina commented on that post, and said that she had rehearsed. Whoops.

I didn’t mean to sound like a jerk, but I stood by my comments because in the end, the impression that I (and my coworkers) got was that she was unprepared. However, I regret picking on Jina so much when I was really trying to make a larger point about the conference.

I would also like to clarify that I don’t mean to belittle the presenters themselves. Public speaking is incredibly difficult to do well, and most people in our industry simply don’t have the experience or training to do so. I’m not saying that I would be a better speaker than anyone else, but if I have to pay to see someone speak, then I think it’s fair to expect a certain level of quality. Everyone wants to get their money’s worth.

This year, I found the mix to be much the same. I went to a great session by Mark Wyner called Best Practices for Permission-Based Email Communication which confirmed a lot of independent research I’d just done for a presentation at work. I also went to a nice little presentation called Design is in the Details by Bryan Veloso and Dan Rubin that I learned a few neat little tricks from.

On the other hand, a session that I had high hopes for, Designing for Video Game Marketing by Andi Rusu, was a complete disappointment. Andi’s company has done the website for several big-name video games, including Jade Empire, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Viva Piñata. What’s notable about this is that typically they get contracted early in the development process, and the only resources they receive are a few sentences describing the game. When they did Jade Empire, for instance, the description they received was “it’s a martial arts game set in ancient China, but not the real China.”

That could have been the setup to a truly fascinating presentation about how to overcome the difficulties of a client that doesn’t give you anything to work with. Instead, we got a one-hour tour of the company’s portfolio, with brief commentary on each site. I won’t make the claim again that he didn’t rehearse, but it certainly felt like he was unprepared, because the presentation was very unorganized, and it didn’t have any clear goal other than to walk us through their portfolio.

Ultimately, the difference between a real top-notch conference like An Event Apart and WebVisions is quality control. Zeldman and company only get the highest-quality speakers for their show, and all of the presentations are very refined. You can tell that the speakers have repeatedly rehearsed and really put a lot of time and effort into their sessions — and you don’t get that same feeling from most of the speakers at WebVisions.

I think this problem partly stems from the conference model that WebVisions has chosen. An Event Apart uses a single-track model where there’s only a single speaker at a time. As a result, time is at a premium, so they can only feature the cream of the crop. WebVisions, on the other hand, uses a multi-track model where there are several speakers to choose from at any given time. Because of this, even though the conference is only two days long, they really need to book something like eight days worth of speakers. Naturally, not all of them are going to be rockstars.

Leaving aside the separate issue of WebVision’s distinction between “sessions” that are included in the cost of admission, and “workshops” that cost extra, I think the decision to use a multi-track format is hurting the overall quality of the conference. I want to see WebVisions become a fantastic conference that draws crowds from around the country, but that’ll never happen with the mixed bag of speakers that it offers right now.

The Door-Close Buttons in Most Elevators Don't Do Anything

2008-04-22T20:26:00Z

When we first moved into our new building, Dave wrote "Door-Close button in elevator does nothing" on the maintenance list, and the handyman replied "Button functions as intended" or something along those lines.

Well, turns out they're BOTH right.

I was reading an article that Kottke linked to about elevators, and there was a little bit in there about how the door close buttons don't do anything in modern elevators!

"In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works. (It does work if, say, a fireman needs to take control. But you need a key, and a fire, to do that.) Once you know this, it can be illuminating to watch people compulsively press the door-close button. That the door eventually closes reinforces their belief in the button’s power."
-- Nick Paumgarten, The New Yorker: Up and Then Down

I Work with a Bunch of Smartasses Part IV

2008-04-03T19:30:00Z

"I print out all my e-mails and tape them to the inside of my clothes. I know Levi and Justin use their iPhones to access e-mail outside work, but my clothes come with me everywhere, and they don't set off airport alarms. I have a DD hat, a Freightliner jacket, a Leatherman belt, and a Screaming Circuits beanie. It works for me."
-- Dave, responding to a discussion about email sorting methods

Version Targeting and IE8 Followup

2008-03-04T17:19:00Z

Hooray! The feedback from the web development community convinced the IE development team to change their minds about the default setting for version targeting in IE8 (as I discussed in a previous post).

“In light of the Interoperability Principles, as well as feedback from the community, we’re choosing differently. Now, IE8 will show pages requesting ‘Standards’ mode in IE8’s Standards mode. Developers who want their pages shown using IE8’s ‘IE7 Standards mode’ will need to request that explicitly (using the http header/meta tag approach).”
– Dean Hachamovitch, Microsoft’s Interoperability Principles and IE8

To clarify, version targeting will still exist in IE8, which is a good thing. The change is that instead of defaulting to IE7’s rendering engine, it will default to IE8 — which is the behavior you would logically expect.

You know, it’s really nice to make a post where I can say something nice about Microsoft, and that’s been happening a lot more often lately, thanks to the IE development team. Way to go, guys!

Version Targeting and IE8

2008-02-20T08:07:00Z

Previously on Web Developer Controversies: Aaron Gustafson from the Internet Explorer development team announced that IE8 will use a META tag to kick the engine into standards mode by targeting a specific browser version, something that was previously done by using a valid DOCTYPE. A lot of people, including Jeremy Keith, think this is a bad idea. Here are some of the more interesting points that have been raised in the discussion so far.

“If IE8 acts like IE8 by default, then IE8 might break [poorly-made websites]. Breaking millions of sites is unacceptable to Microsoft’s brass and to the creators of those websites. It’s to prevent that breakage that Microsoft’s browser developers came up with the new switch. To do its job, the new switch must work the same way the DOCTYPE switch originally worked: namely, it is activated when knowledgeable developers opt in; otherwise it is off by default.”
– Jeffrey Zeldman, Version Targeting: Threat or Menace?

Good summary of the issue. However, I will quibble with one point here. The DOCTYPE made a good switch because it was something you were supposed to be doing anyway, while this new META tag is something I only need to do for IE.

“Unless you explicitly declare that you want IE8 to behave as IE8, it will behave as IE7.”
– Jeremy Keith, Broken

As Jeremy points out in his original post on this topic, when you say it out loud, this sounds like madness. No matter how well-intentioned, and no matter how many times I hear it explained, this just feels backwards to me.

“The fact is, as each new browser comes out and fixes bugs from older versions, our sites need to be revisited. Until we have a chance to do so, our sites shouldn’t break.”
– Jonathan Snook, IE8 to include version targeting

Jonathan brings up a perfect real-world example where version targeting would be very handy - locking old code into the browser(s) it was designed for until you have a chance to revisit them.

“Version targeting is not a bad idea. …As an optional feature, this could prove to be a real lifesaver in some development environments. As a mandatory milestone however, it strikes a blow against progressive enhancement.”
– Jeremy Keith, They Shoot Browsers, Don’t They?

More recently, Jeremy clarified that he thinks version targeting is a fine idea, but making IE7 the default value is a knee-jerk reaction to a short-term problem. It breaks everyone’s expectation of how software should behave, and opens the door to a whole new set of problems in the future.

“Will the backwards-compatible code for IE8 always act exactly like IE8 did, or will there be subtle changes that still break old sites?”
– Eric Meyer, From Switches to Targets

Eric actually wrote in defense of version targeting, but even he raised some concerns about how it would be implemented, and the largest one was this: How can we be sure that future versions of IE will continue to support whatever version of IE we lock our code to? While it’s easy enough to picture IE8 shipping with an intact version of the IE7 and IE6 rendering engines, what happens with IE9+? Will each successive browser release contain every engine? Is it really possible to maintain all of those without making any changes? Looking at the way Microsoft supports backwards compatibility in the Office suite, I’m not optimistic.

“IE7 didn’t… ‘break the web,’ and neither did DOCTYPE switching. …The burden is upon developers and designers to comply, test, and validate.”
– Ethan Marcotte, Code Happy

Ethan raises a point that many people have brought up: Microsoft is taking responsibility for “not breaking the web,” when it’s not really their problem. The only thing that’s broken is software and publishing processes that allow invalid code to go live in the first place.

“But what happens when a multi-billion dollar partner corporation refuses to update and demands, under the terms of its very large service contract and its very steep penalty clauses, that a new version of IE not break …its corporate intranet?”
– Eric Meyer, Almost Target

Of course, as Eric brings up while telling the story of a similar problem he faced during the development of Mozilla, there’s a very good reason that Microsoft is taking responsibility for this “breakage” — Their target audience (corporations) don’t seem to care that the problem is caused by their code. As far as they’re concerned, the problem wasn’t there in the previous version, and now it’s there in the new version, therefore the new version of IE broke their website. It’s bad logic, but we get similar complaints from clients, so I can identify.

And like it or not, web developers like ourselves who are passionate enough about these issues to read all these articles about a proposed feature in an upcoming browser release are not the target audience for Microsoft. It reminds me of the guy from the boat in the new season of Lost, who said “Rescuing your people? I can’t say it’s our primary objective.”

“Therefore Microsoft won’t be inundated with complaints which, in the hands of the wrong director of marketing, could lead to the firing of standards-oriented browser engineers on the IE team. The wholesale firing of standards-oriented developers would jerk IE off the web standards path just when it has achieved sure footing. And if IE were to abandon standards, accessible, standards-compliant design would no longer have a chance.”
– Jeffrey Zeldman, In Defense of Version Targeting

However, it’s possible to take that argument too far. According to Zeldman, nothing less than the future of standards-compliant design rests on this decision. Now, I worship the ground Jeffrey walks on just like every other good standardista - but this seems like a bit of a stretch. IF this happens, then this MIGHT happen, which MIGHT cause this doomsday scenario. Perhaps he’s got some insider information, and perhaps Microsoft is a much more dysfunctional company that it seems, but I don’t think the sky is falling over a META tag.

“The Linux kernel… doesn’t commit to supporting legacy APIs and ABIs. This means that kernel developers are able to make the right design decisions and rewrite broken code without having to worry about continuing to support applications that depend on buggy or poorly designed interfaces …and backwards compatibility does not act like an anchor on innovation.
– Matt Chisholm, Internet Explorer lays Anchor in 1999

Not to hammer the point too much, but the obvious contrast here is Apple and Linux. By embracing emulation over backwards compatibility, they sidestep these issues entirely. If you want to run code that was written for an older version of the OS, you have to run it in an emulator. This places the burden to upgrade on the consumer. In Microsoft terms, if the customer wants the latest version of the browser, but they refuse to update their code, then they need to emulate an older version of the browser for that code.

“The system is opt-in. It’s our choice whether or not to include the optional meta element (or HTTP header) that triggers version targeting. Therefore, in fact, developers are no longer being asked to accommodate Microsoft—at least not beyond the known blemishes of IE7. Instead, Microsoft has committed to accommodating us.”
– Jeffrey Zeldman, Version Targeting: Threat or Menace?

Now, I might just be a simple caveman lawyer, but it seems to me that if I have to do something extra to get the browser to behave as expected, then I’m the one that has to accommodate Microsoft, not the other way around.

“The strong have always been burdened by the weak. It may not always seem fair, but helping where you can is “the right thing to do.” In the case of the ongoing X-UA-Compatible bluster, the strong are the savvy standardistas. The weak? Those who simply don’t know any better. The burden? A single meta tag or http header. Can we move on now?”
– Shaun Inman, Burden

Of course, no matter how you feel about this debate, it helps to put everything into perspective. At the end of the day, all we’re really talking about is a META tag, and you can make things even simpler by setting it on your server, so you don’t even have to put extra markup into your pages.

Personally, I agree with Jeremy Keith that defaulting the rendering engine to IE7 is a bad move, but if it happens, I’ll work around it. Just like I’ve always worked around Microsoft browsers.

The Email Standards Project

2007-12-03T07:52:00Z

In 1998, Jeffrey Zeldman co-founded the Web Standards Project to fight for better support of web standards from the browser manufacturers and web developers. It was a success, if for no other reason than it provided a flag to rally behind.

This year, the Email Standards Project was founded to rally support for web standards in email clients.

The Email Standards Project is about working with email client developers and the design community to improve web standards support and accessibility in email. The project was formed out of frustration with the inconsistent rendering of HTML emails in major email clients.

Our mission is to drive the use and support of web standards in email, working with email client developers to ensure that emails render consistently. This is a community effort to improve the email experience for designers and readers, and we’d love your help.

Given Microsoft’s recent slide backwards on this front in Outlook 2007, the need for a group like this has never been higher. Let’s hope they’re able to get the kind of results the Web Standards Project eventually got.