Technorama

I've written this after noticing that people don't work optimally (humour!) when sending a missive, or replying to mail. This is intended as a bit of fun, some good ideas all the same though ;)

Top tips:

0. Write your points concisely, proof read your text and ensure what you write is clear + friendly. Keep it under 256 characters. Include any supporting information I will need to answer any queries.

1. When replying don't top post. If I wanted a Forward of all the original text I would have asked for it!

2. Don't include more than a few lines of context necessary to see what you are replying to; reply in-line and snip anything irrelevant, leaving just your set of concise comments!

3. Don't send broken URLs. If you're using an email client which breaks URLs onto several lines you need to change your client. If you can't change or use an excellent web based email client like GMail, at least ensure you send URLs using TinyUrl so the rest of us don't have to suffer your borked line-wrapped URLs!

4. Don't send me Out of Office emails. If you don't reply immediately I will already know you aren't at my "beck and call" ! (Remember Out of Office emails are not to be confused with the Read Report header Disposition-Notification-To:! i.e. something I tick on the email before sending if I want such a report). The "right" way for Out of Office to work would be for email clients to set an Out-of-Office-Notification-To: header in the email and have MX servers act upon this.

5. Don't contact me if you're going to then try and make me jump through some company's flawed auto-responder spam ideology (aka Challenge Response which critically fails, killing email when adopted) when I respond. People who use products like Vanquish actually send users unwanted spam emails which ask the users to jump through all manner of hoops and pass a Turing test to confirm they are human; and all this just to let their response though. These people should warn users that they are not using email, so we can simply ignore or delete their auto-responder-encumbered messages!

6. If you're going to send me a formatted email you want me to see, make sure you highlight it is there at the top of you email, because otherwise I wont know and your effort will be wasted!

7. Don't send me emails with empty, unclear or inaccurate subjects. Look up what a subject means in a dictionary if you're not sure what it entails!

8. Don't send me an email to confirm my email arrived. As we know email is delivered already, if it was not delivered it would have bounced!

9. Don't send me emails with fake from addresses like "noreply@yourcompany.com" or even "support@yourcompany.com" that then bounce as "undelivered" when I reply to you.

10. Don't email me and then explain that to reply I have to call your helpline, or fill in a web form, or sign up for an account on your website.

To summarise, if you follow these guidelines you can expect people to read your email and respond, if you ignore them users will simply delete your emails, because their scroll wheel tires wading through pages of forwarded text and such.

Thank Lord Lytton for the subject line!

Labels: guidelines

It's a few months since I put out my WebDoc idea; today I came across a project called Price XML that Opera's CTO Håkon Wium Lie is contributing to.

You'll see their product is presently quite pricey for an open format offering, but it's great all the same to see others thinking along the same lines as me about the future. Bright times ahead!