الثلاثاء، 22 نوفمبر 2011

New Article from Aaron Hockley

New Article from Aaron Hockley

Why Website Contact Forms Suck

Posted: 22 Nov 2011 08:30 AM PST

Recently while attempting to leave a comment on a blog that I read regularly, I ran into an error. I wanted to let the blog author know about the problem so he could resolve the issue and I discovered I didn’t have his email address. On the website, I went to his “Contact” page and was disappointed to see a contact form of substantial length.

BustedIn order to send him a note about a problem on his website, I got to fill out a form asking for:

  • my first and last name
  • my email address
  • (optionally) my phone number
  • pick from a dropdown list of preconfigured “subjects” – none of which applied so I chose “Other”
  • a comments box where I could type my message
  • (optionally) my website’s URL
  • (optionally) a checkbox to subscribe to an email newsletter
  • a reCaptcha that took three tries to get right

Let’s contrast that to the experience I would’ve had if I’d been able to send this person an email from a mailto: link. I would’ve created a new message and:

  • entered a subject that’s descriptive as compared to “Other”
  • entered my comments

According to the site, “To help prevent spam I do not share my email address on my website.” Unfortunately, the web visitor is required to jump through a LOT of hoops because the website owner isn’t willing to use spam filtering on his email.

Don’t erect barriers to engagement. I wonder how many potentially interesting or useful bits of communication haven’t happened because someone got frustrated with an ornerous web contact form?
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