If you have a little girl that loves pink, you may know Fancy Nancy. Fancy Nancy is the main character of a series of books for girls that my daughter loves. This character is not satisfied with “life as usual,” she accessorizes everything! I think we have a few Fancy Nancy’s in PWOC!
I often find myself sitting at a PWOC program wondering how someone ever thought up the idea of putting a scrap of fabric on the table with a few trinkets to make it look so nice. It’s a gift, if you ask me, and a gift that I wasn’t blessed with! I’m fascinated and blessed.
My fascination stops, however, when ladies turn their ‘Fancy’ to their email messages. There are rules for emails and there’s a reason for the rules, too. Here are a few:
- Do not use a background for your emails. It increases the message size and subsequent download time and makes the message more difficult to read. Whether image or color, just say no.
- Avoid using those smiley face icons called emoticons. While they are indeed cute, they are image files attached to the message that, again, increase message size and download time.
- Avoid using fancy fonts. First, fancy fonts are more difficult to read and fatigue the eye. This includes the script font you thought made your message look more regal. It doesn’t. Second, the font will only appear as you intend if the same font file exists on the recipients computer. Otherwise, the recipient’s computer will substitute with a different font and you have no control over what it chooses. Stick to your email’s default font.
- If you must draw emphasis to parts of your message, which I do quite often, do so by using your default font’s color, size, bold, or italics features. Avoid using underline as most users will see that as a hyperlink and not emphasis of message.
- Regarding font color, pay attention! Yellow may well be your favorite color but please don’t send me a message with yellow text. I can absolutely promise I will not read it! Make sure you choose a color that has enough contrast from the message background (white) to be read easily and comfortably.
The last decade has made many tools available to the average computer user that were once strictly reserved for professionals. The trouble is that these tools came with little to no training. Just remember this, as in many things, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
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