We began researching newsletters in 2002. Since then, we have conducted six large-scale studies on newsletter and marketing email usability. Our most recent research involved a diary study with 9 participants in 2 countries (U.S. and Spain), and usability testing with 28 participants from 2 countries (U.S. and Canada). We focused on the subscribe and unsubscribe processes, as well as on receiving, opening, and reading commercial email messages.
It is interesting to reflect on email newsletters of the past and see how far we have come over the years. When we look back at the trends, usability issues, and user behaviors from prior research and compare these to those of today, the changes are dramatic. Some problems observed early on in our research remain, but designers have learned a lot over the years and they have solved many of the usability issues we used to see. Bravo. However, we now notice new challenges related to how newsletters fit into our lives. In this article, we outline some of the largest differences between newsletters of the past and those of today.
Changes in Newsletter Usability over Time
Fewer formal subscriptions - Newsletter-subscription processes of the past were often very involved — perhaps because inboxes and newsletters were quite different in many ways. People had to deal with email-management issues, spam, and slow internet speeds, so subscribing to a newsletter used to be a substantial commitment and reflected a deliberate choice to create a dedicated relationship with organizations. Subscription forms were often lengthy and the detail regarding the content and delivery schedule of a newsletter was robust. Users expected this level of information to understand the commitment made by agreeing to receive messages from an organization.
Because several of these constraints have been remedied over the years, many of the concerns that users had about subscribing have disappeared. In addition, the user’s mindset has changed over time. The increase in sheer email volume over the years has created a scenario where people can’t possibly give all messages their full attention, so they care less about what they receive because they know they can easily ignore the noise or choose what they invest their time in. For these reasons, users now value low-effort and efficient signup over detailed explanations and processes. Subscription forms on websites have become shorter and are often embedded into the footer or into other transactions. This is not to say that users do not appreciate some critical details about newsletters before subscribing to them. It is still good practice to communicate the basics about the subscription at the time of sign up, to set expectations and help customers feel informed.
Evolution of spam - Spam used to be a huge concern for users and newsletter publishers alike. Users wanted to avoid spam and were cautious about signing up for newsletters for fear that their email address would be shared, resulting in unsolicited messages. Publishers were working to ensure their legitimate newsletters would not be flagged as spam in recipients’ inboxes. Now, users don’t worry about spam in the same way they used to. Spam-blocking tools have become much better at identifying and filtering spam appropriately and prioritized email inboxes help organize messages for users. In fact, the meaning behind the word “spam” has changed over time as well. It’s no longer used strictly to describe unsolicited email messages. Participants in our study used the word “spam” to describe solicited marketing emails that they considered random, impersonal, irrelevant, with too much promotional hype, or coming in high volume.
One user in our diary study received a newsletter from AT&T with a subject line that read, “A message for STEVEN”. When he opened the email, the only thing offered was an animated image of a gift bag with a message that said, Mystery flash sale, plus a special offer just for DIRECTTV customers. Hint: It’s a really big deal along with a link labeled Learn More. The recipient said, “The subject line caught my eye, but inside turned out to be just spam. It’s just a huge shaking bag that says, ‘mystery flash sale’. It comes off so spammy and unappealing. Why would I click through? There was nothing compelling about a ‘mystery surprise’. They’re just trying to sell me something and dress it up like a benefit to me. I’d rather they just tell me what they’re selling and what the deal is instead of playing games.”
Another user who received a message from a restaurant-group supper club about an upcoming event said, “So I signed up for this newsletter but I feel this isn't relevant to me and slightly spammy. I mean, I guess I should have expected this but I don't know who this chef is or have any relation to this random event. It feels impersonal, that’s what annoying. It’s not relevant and [is] therefore spam to me.”
“It’s spam to me” is the operative term in this user quote. Spam is in the eye of the beholder (i.e., recipient).
In our research, many users disliked information that was not tailored or specific to their interests. Many times, these types of messages were considered spam and this attitude illustrates the increasing importance of personalization in marketing emails and newsletters.
Emotional connections and demand for personalization - In our first several rounds of research, one of the most significant findings was that users had emotional reactions to newsletters. The effort and commitment involved in subscribing to a newsletter created an emotional connection to that newsletter that also formed a bond between the user and the company. The messages felt personal because they arrived in users’ inboxes, and users had an ongoing relationship with them. The negative aspect to this connection was that newsletter-related problems had a strong impact on the organization’s brand.
In recent research, we’ve seen that the emotional connection to newsletters has lessened — in fact users seem to have grown numb to the content that shows up in their inbox. People receive so much email that they can’t care strongly about all of it.
Although there may be select newsletters that users feel strongly about, the overall feeling of attachment to newsletters has faded. Organizations must work hard to stick out from the crowd, and the challenge becomes standing out without sacrificing usability.
Newsletters that delivered highly personalized and relevant content at the right time received the most positive emotional responses from recipients. Digital capabilities for personalized content and experiences have become robust over recent years and users have become conditioned to expect a high level of relevance from marketing messages. Recipients want organizations to use known information about them to deliver valuable and relevant content in their newsletters and marketing messages. As discussed, many of those messages who did not do so were considered spam.
One user received a message from Viking River Cruises that was not specific to his preferences saying, “Nothing was personalized. They could have personalized the content based on my selections … on their site.” Another user had similar thoughts about a travel-promotion email from Booking.com: “The offers provided should have been based on my previous searches on their site, which were not the destinations included in the email.”
Most users’ reasons for liking a newsletter or finding it valuable were related to its relevance and their level of interest in the content. One user said, “I like this one because it is personalized for me; it includes courses and learning modules according to my interests.” Another user who received information about do-it-yourself projects and craft ideas reported liking the email because “it is something that I am interested in; it helps me feel creative and productive.”
Relevant content doesn’t have to be highly targeted. Relevance can be specific to a time of the year, season, or event. One user who received a message with information about a new season of coffee drinks said, “I felt like it was relevant for the time of the year and season. It wasn’t random.”
When users complained about the relevance of the email, half said they intended to unsubscribe, while the other half said they would continue to receive the messages, but ignore them or delete them. In reality, most people choose to ignore the emails in the future, rather than making the effort to unsubscribe.
Personalization and providing relevant experiences are already on the horizon as the next big competitive requirement for UX and customer experience. Organizations must invest in learning how to identify customers and use the data they have about them to predict their information needs. The result will be better customer experiences, engagement, and loyalty — due in part to personal, targeted, and timely newsletters and marketing messages.
Fewer concerns about unsubscribing - Newsletter recipients used to have difficulty when trying to leave a mailing list. Every organization had its own unsubscribe process and it was often a time-consuming task. Now that organizations are required to include an Unsubscribe link in their newsletters, this task has become easier.
Although there is less concern about the effort required to unsubscribe from unwanted newsletters, users don’t always do so. Users have created systems to filter their messages across accounts and across folders to limit the impact on their inboxes, so many messages will never even be seen. People also find it easy to simply ignore or delete unwanted messages. Whatever the reason, it’s clear that mailing-list owners shouldn’t assume that all subscribers actually want to receive their newsletters. Many users might have simply neglected to unsubscribe.
Some newsletters deliberately make it difficult to unsubscribe by hiding the instructions or making them overly complex. The motive is probably to retain as many subscribers as possible in order to maximize the reach of permission-marketing programs. In reality, you don’t have users’ “permission” once they stop wanting the newsletter, regardless of whether they jump through the hoops required to get off the list. If users keep getting unwanted newsletters, the messages will start to backfire and become regular reminders that they’re annoyed with your company. Better to let them go.
Fewer formatting issues, broken links, and broken images - In the past, it was challenging for email clients to render images and various formats appropriately. HTML technologies have improved, making email rendering fairly predictable and stable. Email clients have also improved their capabilities and there is more consistency across the landscape in these capabilities, making formatting issues and broken images less of a concern for newsletter publishers, and a rare issue for recipients.
Changing layouts - When we began studying newsletters, everything was designed for the desktop screen. Newsletter layouts were built for large screens, with limited scrolling in mind. Multicolumn layouts were common, which meant that content was horizontally dense and the messages were short. When modern mobile devices came along, these layouts became problematic. In 2012, we still found significant mobile-usability issues caused by these multicolumn layouts.
Over the past few years, most newsletters have adapted to small screens and many messages now render appropriately on mobile devices. Organizations have moved toward newsletter templates that are fluid and adjust to various screen sizes. Single-column emails are very common.
Interestingly, many multicolumn newsletters viewed on large monitors now seemed overly complex to users (even if the template appropriately rescales on mobile). Single-column webpages and email designs with full-width imagery, lower-content density, and more scrolling have become commonplace in recent years, and it seems that users have become accustomed to seeing these designs. Single-column layouts show fewer items in the viewport at one time, making the emails feel clean and streamlined. Multicolumn layouts result in smaller images and narrower columns of text. Users often perceived multicolumn newsletter designs as overwhelming and cluttered.
(Users are slower when reading difficult content on small mobile screens, but we wouldn’t recommend publishing super-complicated material in an email in the first place.)
Users tended to find small, thumbnail-style imagery as less valuable and compelling compared to full-width high-quality photos. This attitude about imagery is in line with the trend toward more visual email communication.
Growth of Visual Communication - One of the most notable changes in newsletters and marketing email is the shift toward more visual communication.
The use of imagery on the web in general has changed over recent years, as many websites use imagery as a key component in their designs, rather than a secondary element. For instance, sites might use a large high-resolution photograph at the top of the page or use full-width imagery throughout the site. (However, this trend does not always result in usable designs.) The same is true for email newsletters. Although imagery has always had its place in email communication, today’s marketing emails use graphics and imagery as a major fixture.
In the past, small thumbnail images accompanied by text-based content in a multicolumn layout was typical. However, in our most recent round of research, newsletters with dense layouts, and small, complex imagery were considered cluttered and the imagery thought to be dated, or low-quality. Now, with the emphasis on imagery across the web, users strongly preferred images that could be seen full screen or at a larger scale, looked high-quality, and showed detail clearly.
One user who received a restaurant newsletter from The Infatuation said, “I thought this email was very well designed because the pictures were large, well organized and easy to understand. There were not a lot of words or clutter in the email.”
Aside from the shift toward image-based design, other visual elements like emojis and animated gifs have established their place in newsletters and marketing emails. Emojis are small visual representations of an emotion, object, or symbol. These little pictographs are now commonly used in subject lines to draw attention, add context, and bring emotion to a message in the inbox.
Although not new to the web, animated gifs have reemerged as a useful tool to make our digital communications more expressive. It’s no surprise that organizations have begun using animated gifs in thoughtful ways in their newsletters, to add to the value delivered through a traditionally static channel. These animated images not only provide an emotive element, but they can also show products in use and provide supplemental information.
Larger files and faster downloads - One downside of these highly visual newsletter-design trends is the larger size of the newsletters and the amount of data required by recipients to download them. When dialup internet was still the primary means of accessing the web, speed and file size were a big concern to internet users and newsletter subscribers. Organizations have become better at limiting file sizes and network speeds have increased, so these issues were much less of a concern in the recent years. However, with the growth of mobile connectivity, a new emphasis is being placed on file size: many users have to pay for the amount of data they consume, plus download speeds can suffer in areas with poor connections. So we must still be aware of the download time of our newsletters and the amount of data being transferred over mobile networks.
Email Rules for Customer Relationship Maintenance
Email is the oldest media form on the internet, being invented in 1972 before many of our readers were even born. But email is holding up swimmingly in competition with toddler-aged internet media forms like Snapchat. Our research participants still appreciate good emails and read them. So if your brand can deliver relevant and interesting emails, this aging media form is still a superb way to stay in touch with your customers.
Full Report
The full report on email marketing and newsletter usability with 199 design guidelines for email user experience design is available for download.
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