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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 p

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.)
- jamiecurle 15y ago
  Good points you make and from this perspective it makes our approach a little short sighted and ill advised. Having a contact form as well an email address may be a more reasonable default - I could have been pushing my own preference onto users and this is obviously no good.
  - 8ig8 15y ago
    As a web developer I find forms to be a pain for simple sites. They're a moving part I'd rather not deal with. Lately I've been pushing hosted forms like what Wufoo offers. Provide the email address like you mentioned, but link or embed a simple Wufoo form.

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.)

jamiecurle 15y ago
Good points you make and from this perspective it makes our approach a little short sighted and ill advised. Having a contact form as well an email address may be a more reasonable default - I could have been pushing my own preference onto users and this is obviously no good.
- 8ig8 15y ago
  As a web developer I find forms to be a pain for simple sites. They're a moving part I'd rather not deal with. Lately I've been pushing hosted forms like what Wufoo offers. Provide the email address like you mentioned, but link or embed a simple Wufoo form.