Cameron Moll Go to the source
A few months ago 37signals redesigned Basecamp ’s notification emails, and the result was a move from plain-text emails to HTML emails. For reference, these emails are sent when someone posts or replies to any of the content types in the system (messages, to-dos, etc). I’m generally opposed to receiving HTML emails if a plain-text alternate is available. I use email as a tool to send and receive communication, and too often some creators of HTML email offer visual noise more than anything else. Ironically, they fail to leverage one advantage HTML email has over plain-text email: visual hierarchy, or the ability to help the reader get the right message using color, proportion, and so forth. Visual hierarchy, the classification of elements according to importance and relationship to other elements, tends to be one of the most ignored and underutilized principles of design. … Read the rest here