I recently watched Steve Jobs discuss the iPad with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher at the D8: All Things Digital conference. Jobs presented a “trucks versus cars” analogy: all vehicles used to be trucks, but as times changed, needs changed, and people were attracted to cars by features like windshield wipers and automatic transmissions. Now there are far more cars than trucks. His point was that the same would become true for personal computers (PCs).

Whether you’re an informed skeptic, committed luddite, or Apple fanatic, iPad sales topped two million in less than 60 days (one every three seconds), and Apple has been producing the iPad at a rate of 1 million to 1.5 million units a month, suggesting that tablet devices are here to stay and represent a pervasive new shift in personal computing that will have an impact on how your subscribers receive, open, and engage with email.

Examining an end user’s HTML email experience on the iPad can help online marketers understand the opportunities and limitations it provides, and bake that knowledge into more successful email marketing campaigns.

Fewer Distractions = More Engaged

For most, the iPad is not primarily a work machine. As such, it is uncluttered by interruptions served by work-related applications or tasks. More importantly, the usability of the device is formed by new behavioral usage patterns. In short, the fact that a user can (and does) use the iPad in new places and states of mind when compared to a PC, offers opportunity for increased engagement.

Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, who originally reviewed the iPad as “stuck between the power and utility of the notebook and the size and features of a smartphone”, has recently changed his mind stating, “The iPad makes using a computer less of a commitment and that has important implications for the way I compute. I like how I feel when I am using the thing.”

Consider what this new engagement means to the personality, tone, and voice of your marketing communications as well as the nature of your calls to action and email send times. Building knowledge of your email subscribers’ device platforms through analytics tracking of your email marketing campaigns and landing pages will allow you to better target iPad users and benefit from the increased engagement it offers.

How Touchable is Your Email Marketing?

Interactions on touch-based interfaces are performed with fingers or thumbs. The size of a touchable target, whether it is a clickable image or call-to-action button, needs to be large enough to see and touch, and be positioned for accessibility.

In his post, Touch Target Sizes, Luke Wroblewski explains that an MIT Touch Lab study found that the average fingertip is 8-10mm, and that Apple recommends a minimum target size of 29 pixels wide by 44 pixels tall in their iPhone Human Interface Guidelines. Whatever resource you draw from, recognize that fingers are different than mouse cursors and design accordingly.

Also, buttons positioned in the horizontal middle of an HTML email are more difficult to touch when holding the iPad with two hands. It forces the user to change their grip on the device, which may lead to fewer clicks and conversions. Try positioning call-to-action buttons on the right side of your email within reach of a user’s thumb. And keep in mind: a finger sweep scroll is quite different than a mouse wheel scroll – optimize your email and landing page content for scan ability.

Summary

Whether you simply consider subscribers’ iPad email experiences as a design lens for your email marketing campaigns, or pioneer new opportunities for device-specific engagement like interactive Flash alternatives for landing pages, marketers who optimize their Web content for this new wave of computing device are sure to have an edge.

For more thoughts about email marketing and the iPad read:
What impact will the iPad have on email marketing? 

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About the Author

Brennan Carlson is director of user experience at Lyris, driving user-centered design of Lyris HQ to support customers' needs for an online and email marketing solution that combines utility, ease-of-use and efficiency.

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