http://www.webdirections.org/resources/mathew-patterson/

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2236028379

My workflow would be to try and keep the HTML and CSS as lean and simple as possible. My newsletter designs are fairly straight forward and tend to stick to a relatively simple grid to avoid needing extra code.

The campaign monitor site says it well “Designing an HTML email that renders consistently across the major email clients can be very time consuming. Support for even simple CSS varies considerably between clients, and even different versions of the same client.”

Campaign Monitor also offers a CSS cheatsheet to help reduce further problems and save time (I’m sure you know). http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css

Once the designs are coded I generally test them on various browsers and email clients. When I feel confident I’ll either send it or if its a more complex design I’ll run a Campaign Monitor design test for $5. The tests can really speed up the process and ensure quality delivery.

However as with all things online there is still lots to learn. As the industry starts to adopt better and more consistent standards it will make our job easier but it’s not going to happen overnight.

How about yourself? Do you have testing preferences?

With these disparate results, what’s your testing workflow?