Email News and Leads Today

• Email subject lines should be short. Our research indicates that the shorter the subject line the better it is.  
  
  

• Email responses (messages prefixed by RE:) are important to people.  
  
  

• Forwarded email messages (prefixed by FW: and FWD:) are not as critical or important to people in relation to other messages. 
  
  

• The use of ALL CAPS only marginally improves usability. It seems to be a non-factor compared to the other factors. 
  
  

• Position of an email in a list of other emails is not relevant. 
  
  

The basic idea is that email messages should be short. If they are personal, as referenced by the RE: prefix, then they are more likely to be read and they are more important to the recipient. It doesn't seem to matter when the user receives the email and it doesn't seem to matter what emails are flanking other emails. Usability research verifies what usability researchers have suspected: Keep email subject lines short and keep them personal if they are meant to be personal.

The basic idea is that most email subject lines are greater than 50 characters in length. On the other hand, the short and effective email subject lines only accounted for only about 15% of all the emails. So, even though common sense might indicate that shorter email subject lines are better, the reality is that most people don't follow the common sense idea. This is yet another small victory for usability testing!

Have a happy-email day!