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Sending emails
Overview
Use emails to notify your users about progress with a transaction.
How it works
Consider using GOV.UK Notify
GOV.U
K Notify
lets you send emails and text messages to your users.
Follow the writing guide for emails
Follow this guide on writing for emails
.
Remember that email is not a guaranteed delivery mechanism
Email is not a guaranteed delivery mechanism
. Give your users the option to resend emails that contain essential information, or access that information in some other way.
Send HTML emails
Send
HTML emails
-
they
can use the GOV.UK identity, which makes users trust them more
Send the email in multipart with a plaintext fallback
(Blackberry
OS 4 cannot render HTML)
Images should be loaded from the web to stop the email containing attachments
CSS should be inline
Use tables for layout
U
sing
a
simple
sans-serif
font stack
- email clients do not handle webfonts well
HTML is limited to XHTML strict elements, no HTML5
Research
on this pattern
Carers Allowance
82% of users chose to get an email notification when their application had been received by DWP.
GOV.UK Notify
GOV.UK Notify
tested 6 versions
of a HTML email
in a selection of clients using
Litmus
:
Table layout, 580px width
Table layout, 100% width
XHTML layout, css inlined
XHTML layout, css NOT inlined
Mailchimp simple basic
Mailchimp simple responsive
Here are the results:
Related links
https://designnotes.blog.gov.uk/2014/09/04/the-design-of-government-em
https://litmus.com/
– tests your email in lots of browsers and operating systems. $79pm but you can get a week's free trial
https://www.campaignmonitor.com/testing/
also lets you test in lots of email clients - I have used this before and its good
https://github.com/seanpowell/Email-Boilerplate
– useful default styles to handle client quirks
https://github.com/mailchimp/Email-Blueprints
– fully-featured responsive templates
http://templates.mailchimp.com/resources/inline-css/
or
http://zurb.com/ink/inliner.php
– moves your CSS inline, again to handle client quirks
https://gist.github.com/henryhadlow/e51ac752e16ce20a5db5
– prototype email using table layouts for gov.uk/performance
https://gist.github.com/henryhadlow/940cf19bd224104cb2c6
– prototype email without table layouts for gov.uk/performance – inline the CSS before sending – doesn't render in Lotus Notes
https://putsmail.com/
– Litmus Putsmail is a useful for tool for sending one-off
(free)
test emails to yourself
Please turn on JavaScript to use Paper in all of its awesomeness. ^_^
Overview
How it works
Consider using GOV.UK Notify
Follow the writing guide for emails
Remember that email is not a guaranteed delivery mechanism
Send HTML emails
Research on this pattern
Carers Allowance
GOV.UK Notify
Related links