5 ms·

Why your contact form sucks

38 points by user24 15y ago

BasDirks 15y ago
Their own contact form (and entire website) contradicts the advice quite demonstratively.
- user24 15y ago
  You're right, but that doesn't make the advice any less valid. It's my site, but it's just an off-the-shelf wordpress theme I'm using. What do you think can be improved about the UI of the site, aside from the comments form which I'll fix tonight?
  - BasDirks 15y ago
    Excellent response to (admittedly unconstructive) criticism, hats off :) Will send you my humble suggestions after work.
masklinn 15y ago
* Why do you want my first and last name? Hell, why do you mandate those? You don't need them and my email address is more than enough to reply. * Provide a straight mailto link. Your contact form blows, your text boxes are not resizable if my browser does not provide an UI override I can't keep a full communication log on my side. When you reply in three weeks forgetting to quote half my query, there is no way I'm going to remember what I typed in your contact form.
- wisty 15y ago
  I hate first-name last-name fields. Chinese (among others) have their names ordered "Family-name, middle-name, given-name". And some cultures have only one name. And you just know that it's going to go into a terribly localized "Dear Mr. X" template". And unicode characters will probably get truncated out. Here's an alternative: Full name, Short name (optional), Formal name (optional).
  - tybris 15y ago
    or "Name"
- modernerd 15y ago
  > Why do you want my first and last name? I ask for these on web forms simply because it's good to be able to reply to people by name, instead of starting your response with "Hello" or, as is sadly quite common, no greeting at all. > I can't keep a full communication log on my side. That bugs me too. I use a "receive a copy of this email" checkbox on my forms for this reason.
  - masklinn 15y ago
    > I ask for these on web forms simply because it's good to be able to reply to people by name, instead of starting your response with "Hello" or, as is sadly quite common, no greeting at all. Then 1. make it optional, not mandatory, I really don't care for being greeted in an answer to one of my inquiries and "hello" more than suffices (nothing is also perfectly acceptable). And 2. Don't make it a pair of First, Last field. If I'm Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of Her other Realms and Territories, Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith you'd better greet me as exactly that. On a more serious notes, various cultures have different takes on names and greetings, not everybody has a first and a last name (or only a first and a last name). Just put "name" and I'll put what I want in that.
    - modernerd 15y ago
      Both excellent points. > "hello" more than suffices (nothing is also perfectly acceptable). To me -- as a receiver -- it feels impersonal to get a barked response without a greeting, especially if I'm writing to a company or in a professional context, and particularly if their answer seems canned. And, as a sender, it feels uncomfortable starting without a short personal greeting (at least for the first email you send). In the field of customer service, especially, you need to convey that you've acknowledged the sender's unique concerns. Even when they're far from unique. Some interesting reading here in "Are greetings and salutations redundant in an e-mail?": http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/18396/are-greetings-and-salutations-redundant-in-an-e-mail http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/18396/are-greetin... In case it ever crops up, addressing Her Majesty The Queen in written form as 'Madam' and closing with 'I have the honour to be, Madam, Your Majesty's humble and obedient servant' is just fine.
panabee 15y ago
i couldn't agree more with the sentiments captured here. it's critical to help users experience some satisfaction, to help them achieve their goal as quickly as possible, without presenting tangential tasks. user patience is virtually non-existent.
trb 15y ago
It should be common design sense to think about what the users wants to accomplish and how to help them achieve their goal faster. It would make a lot of interfaces much more pleasant to use. It doesn't take a lot of time. The html for a simple comment form takes me more time to write than to think about what the user wants to do (tell me something). I would even go so far as to not ask for anything besides the email address for replies, and make that optional: If you sign with your name, I can greet you. No matter what convention you use. If you don't that's fine, too. Want me to call you? Write it in your message. Even if you didn't enter an email address, I still got whatever you had to say, and who knows - your suggestion could be the one thing I've been missing all along.
ignifero 15y ago
I believe contact forms are terrible by design: websites want you to contact them only when you're desperate. Try contacting Paypal as an example. OTOH, i seriously love the feedback form on Google+.
huertanix 15y ago
The fewer form fields the better. Name, email address, message, and Fifth Element captcha are all I use on my personal website's contact form: http://davidhuerta.me/contact.php http://davidhuerta.me/contact.php
jamiecurle 15y ago
For at least a year and half now we've been working with clients to eliminate their contact forms and give users an email address instead of a form. From the perspective of the user this is preferable for a number of reasons. Drafts can be saved, the message goes in their sent items, their name is already set, their email address is correct but most of all because it allows the user to write in the context that their used to writing in. Clients obvious concern is spam and it is a problem as can be deciding who gets the email ( support / customer service / accounts ) and we work these issues out on a case by case basis. There is no silver bullet. My stance on the issue, is that the primary aim (I assume) of the contact form / page is to get people to contact whoever lies behind it, it seems quite absurd to make users jump through the hoops of a form in order to do so.
- joelanman 15y ago
  Do you have any stats on whether this has led to more contact from users? While I can see some of the advantages you listed for email addresses, the good thing about a contact form is that it's right there, ready to be filled in. An email link has to be clicked on, the email client might take some time to load, or not even be properly associated with mailto: links (eg. webmail clients)
- pwaring 15y ago
  Possibly overkill, but if clients are concerned about deciding who gets the email they could use something like RT (or a more user-friendly alternative :). I'm sure with a few clever hacks you could probably route anything mentioning 'accounts', 'invoices' etc. to the accounts department automatically, and anything which isn't caught can be quickly sent to the correct department.
- 8ig8 15y ago
  It's not unusual for me to browse the web from my wife's iPad. An email link doesn't work for me in that it requires me to use her account. For a while I didn't have email set up on my iPhone, but I'd still often surf the web. Again, I'd be out of luck with only an email link. What about website visitors at public terminals like the library? Without forms you're adding email as a dependency on the device to initiate contact. As always, the likelihood of those use cases is dependent on the audience of the site, but I think a contact form should be available in most cases as a last resort. (Personally, I prefer a simple contact form in most cases. It keeps me on the page without the delay of opening the mail client or the potential distraction therein.)
thomasgerbe 15y ago
You could probably get away with just: Message, Name, E-mail
- tintin 15y ago
  I think Message and E-mail will be enough. Most people write down 'kind regards, name' in the message.
dasil003 15y ago
> The contact form for the White House has thirteen fields to fill out before the user gets to start the task they came there to do! Thirteen! Did it occur to the OA that making it easy to submit a message is not their primary UX goal? How about encouraging thorough and complete responses so that they actually can respond to the good messages instead of frustrating thoughtful constituents who get drowned out by spam?

38 points by user24 15y ago

BasDirks 15y ago

Their own contact form (and entire website) contradicts the advice quite demonstratively.

user24 15y ago
You're right, but that doesn't make the advice any less valid. It's my site, but it's just an off-the-shelf wordpress theme I'm using. What do you think can be improved about the UI of the site, aside from the comments form which I'll fix tonight?
- BasDirks 15y ago
  Excellent response to (admittedly unconstructive) criticism, hats off :) Will send you my humble suggestions after work.

masklinn 15y ago

* Why do you want my first and last name? Hell, why do you mandate those? You don't need them and my email address is more than enough to reply. * Provide a straight mailto link. Your contact form blows, your text boxes are not resizable if my browser does not provide an UI override I can't keep a full communication log on my side. When you reply in three weeks forgetting to quote half my query, there is no way I'm going to remember what I typed in your contact form.

wisty 15y ago
I hate first-name last-name fields. Chinese (among others) have their names ordered "Family-name, middle-name, given-name". And some cultures have only one name. And you just know that it's going to go into a terribly localized "Dear Mr. X" template". And unicode characters will probably get truncated out. Here's an alternative: Full name, Short name (optional), Formal name (optional).
- tybris 15y ago
  or "Name"
modernerd 15y ago
> Why do you want my first and last name? I ask for these on web forms simply because it's good to be able to reply to people by name, instead of starting your response with "Hello" or, as is sadly quite common, no greeting at all. > I can't keep a full communication log on my side. That bugs me too. I use a "receive a copy of this email" checkbox on my forms for this reason.
- masklinn 15y ago
  > I ask for these on web forms simply because it's good to be able to reply to people by name, instead of starting your response with "Hello" or, as is sadly quite common, no greeting at all. Then 1. make it optional, not mandatory, I really don't care for being greeted in an answer to one of my inquiries and "hello" more than suffices (nothing is also perfectly acceptable). And 2. Don't make it a pair of First, Last field. If I'm Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of Her other Realms and Territories, Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith you'd better greet me as exactly that. On a more serious notes, various cultures have different takes on names and greetings, not everybody has a first and a last name (or only a first and a last name). Just put "name" and I'll put what I want in that.
  - modernerd 15y ago
    Both excellent points. > "hello" more than suffices (nothing is also perfectly acceptable). To me -- as a receiver -- it feels impersonal to get a barked response without a greeting, especially if I'm writing to a company or in a professional context, and particularly if their answer seems canned. And, as a sender, it feels uncomfortable starting without a short personal greeting (at least for the first email you send). In the field of customer service, especially, you need to convey that you've acknowledged the sender's unique concerns. Even when they're far from unique. Some interesting reading here in "Are greetings and salutations redundant in an e-mail?": http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/18396/are-greetings-and-salutations-redundant-in-an-e-mail http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/18396/are-greetin... In case it ever crops up, addressing Her Majesty The Queen in written form as 'Madam' and closing with 'I have the honour to be, Madam, Your Majesty's humble and obedient servant' is just fine.

panabee 15y ago

i couldn't agree more with the sentiments captured here. it's critical to help users experience some satisfaction, to help them achieve their goal as quickly as possible, without presenting tangential tasks. user patience is virtually non-existent.

trb 15y ago

It should be common design sense to think about what the users wants to accomplish and how to help them achieve their goal faster. It would make a lot of interfaces much more pleasant to use. It doesn't take a lot of time. The html for a simple comment form takes me more time to write than to think about what the user wants to do (tell me something). I would even go so far as to not ask for anything besides the email address for replies, and make that optional: If you sign with your name, I can greet you. No matter what convention you use. If you don't that's fine, too. Want me to call you? Write it in your message. Even if you didn't enter an email address, I still got whatever you had to say, and who knows - your suggestion could be the one thing I've been missing all along.

ignifero 15y ago

I believe contact forms are terrible by design: websites want you to contact them only when you're desperate. Try contacting Paypal as an example. OTOH, i seriously love the feedback form on Google+.

huertanix 15y ago

The fewer form fields the better. Name, email address, message, and Fifth Element captcha are all I use on my personal website's contact form: http://davidhuerta.me/contact.php http://davidhuerta.me/contact.php

jamiecurle 15y ago

For at least a year and half now we've been working with clients to eliminate their contact forms and give users an email address instead of a form. From the perspective of the user this is preferable for a number of reasons. Drafts can be saved, the message goes in their sent items, their name is already set, their email address is correct but most of all because it allows the user to write in the context that their used to writing in. Clients obvious concern is spam and it is a problem as can be deciding who gets the email ( support / customer service / accounts ) and we work these issues out on a case by case basis. There is no silver bullet. My stance on the issue, is that the primary aim (I assume) of the contact form / page is to get people to contact whoever lies behind it, it seems quite absurd to make users jump through the hoops of a form in order to do so.

joelanman 15y ago
Do you have any stats on whether this has led to more contact from users? While I can see some of the advantages you listed for email addresses, the good thing about a contact form is that it's right there, ready to be filled in. An email link has to be clicked on, the email client might take some time to load, or not even be properly associated with mailto: links (eg. webmail clients)
pwaring 15y ago
Possibly overkill, but if clients are concerned about deciding who gets the email they could use something like RT (or a more user-friendly alternative :). I'm sure with a few clever hacks you could probably route anything mentioning 'accounts', 'invoices' etc. to the accounts department automatically, and anything which isn't caught can be quickly sent to the correct department.
8ig8 15y ago
It's not unusual for me to browse the web from my wife's iPad. An email link doesn't work for me in that it requires me to use her account. For a while I didn't have email set up on my iPhone, but I'd still often surf the web. Again, I'd be out of luck with only an email link. What about website visitors at public terminals like the library? Without forms you're adding email as a dependency on the device to initiate contact. As always, the likelihood of those use cases is dependent on the audience of the site, but I think a contact form should be available in most cases as a last resort. (Personally, I prefer a simple contact form in most cases. It keeps me on the page without the delay of opening the mail client or the potential distraction therein.)

thomasgerbe 15y ago

You could probably get away with just: Message, Name, E-mail

tintin 15y ago
I think Message and E-mail will be enough. Most people write down 'kind regards, name' in the message.

dasil003 15y ago

> The contact form for the White House has thirteen fields to fill out before the user gets to start the task they came there to do! Thirteen! Did it occur to the OA that making it easy to submit a message is not their primary UX goal? How about encouraging thorough and complete responses so that they actually can respond to the good messages instead of frustrating thoughtful constituents who get drowned out by spam?