Comment and Contact Forms Are For Users, Not You!
Introduction
Comment and contact forms are a prevalent feature of almost every website out there today. They are usually pretty straight forward; you provide some details (such as your name/return contact method/etc), write your request/comment/etc, click send, and then hopefully, you get a reply. Simple stuff! There is, however, differences between comment and contact forms, and today, I’d like to present that difference, from the perspective of a user, as opposed to that of a developer/designer.
All forms are not made equal
Have you considered the differences between these two types of forms? With a real world example (I’m going to use an example of a blog here, for the sake of simplicity), they usually appear to be laid out in exactly the same way, with many if not all of the same requirements. Take these two scenarios:
- User A wants to contact website X’s owner. He navigates to the contact page, and finds a contact form. He enters his name, email address, a subject, and his message. Done. Pretty much what user A expected!
- User B has just read a brilliant post on website X’s blog. He has his own thoughts to share. Brilliant! A comment form, right at the bottom of the post! But…
And here is where it has all gone wrong. (Remember we are looking at this from an average user’s perspective!)
User A expects that, in order to receive a reply from website X’s owner, he must leave details of who he is, and where he can be contacted. It makes sense to get the mundane, but important stuff out of the way before launching into what he has to say in his message.
User B on the other hand, has read the article, and wants to join in with the discussion. Yet, before being able to do so, he also needs (in the vast majority of cases) to provide a name, username, email, website, etc, before he can comment.
This feels fundamentally wrong to me; in effect, User B is being pestered for information, and all he wanted to do was discuss the article he just read. This is the difference between a contact and a comment form. A contact form is used to make a statement, whereas a comment form is used to join a conversation. Syntactically, they may be exact copies of each other. That does not, however, mean that they should be presented the same way.
Logical arrangement
So, you may be thinking, it all boils down to the user’s experience? Well, yes. Isn’t that what we do for a living? Design and develop experiences for other people? To provide an (amusing) analogy to demonstrate User B’s experience with website X’s comment form, imagine the following conversation.
A makes a statement (blog article) to his two friends. B likes this statement, and gives A a slap on the back (“like” button). Friend C, however, disagrees:
C: I disagree….
Cough
A: I’m sorry, what’s your name?
C: C! Now as I was saying…
Cough
A: And where are you from?
C: Wha..? I’m from London. Now, can I continue?
A: Wait.. what do you do for a living?
C: Jesus! I’m a painter. Can I finish what I was saying now?
A: Yea, sure, go ahead…
C: Damn! Never mind.
The point is, the user wants to leave his comment under the article he has just read. He is probably aware that he will need to also leave credentials for other people to see, but why can’t he get his thoughts down on screen first? Having to give your credentials before being able to join in the conversation is intrusive, stifling and actually, when you think about it… somewhat rude!
There are several reasons why certain information is required for a given form, irrespective of its intended use. Those reasons are beyond the scope of this article, but we can see how, by merely allowing the user to write his comment before he leaves his contact details, we can greatly increase his, and the overall user experience.
Ticking all the boxes
One could argue that comment and contact forms are presented alike for the sake of simplicity. Whilst in some cases this may hold true, it is not really a strong enough justification, in my opinion, for universal implementation. A comment is not a contact request. However, a contact request may be a comment (for example: “Thanks for the wonderful service, your website was very easy to use. Keep up the good work!”)
One concern that might arise with re-arranging the way comment forms are presented is that a user might not fill in all the required boxes. Well, to be honest, that is not the user’s fault, but the fault of the developer who evidently did not give clear direction.
Clear, concise, organised and efficient
If a user is able to put his thoughts down on paper when he has the urge to, i.e. right after he has read the article, his thoughts are far more likely to be fresh in his mind, than if he has to fill out several (essentially non-related) bits of information first. This could possibly lead to more intelligent commenting, and therefore more learning experiences, for more people, in a shorter time frame. This is, hypothetically, ideally speaking, but hey – you never know, right? 
Best practises, and a final note
There is no one single way to implement comment and contact forms. A lot of the time, the need is specific to the individual website, or even the individual user. However, small changes like allowing the user to comment before entering his credentials can make huge improvements to any website, and should not be overlooked.
I touched upon this previously, but I think it deserves another minute of our time. The only time a user will not be able to fill out a form properly, whatever its intended usage, is when the form does not follow, logically. The easiest method is to start at the top, and work your way down. Most important textarea first, submit button last. As a perfect example, think of facebook – a user submits a new status, and quite simply, anybody in his network just has to click the textarea, say what they feel like, click submit, and hey presto! Conversation!
Always remember when designing/developing a solution to any given problem that, it is not you you are doing it for; it is the end user who has to use your code. This stands for everything, not just forms.
Now it’s your turn
Have you identified any patterns that users develop with your forms? Not necessarily just click-rates/conversion/bounce/etc, but in terms of content? Do you find it annoying that you (usually) have to provide your credentials before you can join in the discussion? Or do you think I’m making a bit of a moot point, and that it really doesn’t matter?
About the author
Dan Stark is a 23 year old father and freelance web designer/developer with a strong passion for web typography, illustration, and tea. When not working for clients, he can often be found downhill mountain biking, or working on one of several web projects.
Thanks for sharing, Dan. Form ux is something I’ve never really thought about before, but I can see how important it is, especially to normal users.
That being said, what are your thoughts on CAPTCHA?
I’d keep it really simple to start with – give an initial comment form which *only* has the text area for the comment.
Then when they submit it, on the next acknowledgement page you can enter a dialog with the submitter, giving them the option to just leave the comment anonymously, or to give their details in return for a more interactive experience (to get email alerts if others respond, and so on).
Naturally anonymous comments can be ‘penalised’ by going to the end of the moderation line, whilst posts from people who have previously posted without issue could be posted immediately.
As to CAPTCHAs, I generally dislike them but understand the desire to use them when you don’t want to force comments through a moderation loop.
CAPTCHAs are useful if you are trying to prevent bulk automated attempts to game your system, but then those bulk attempts should also trigger some less user-intrusive systems (multiple requests from the same IP block in a short timeframe, or content that would normally be variable showing up the same). We use these sorts of techniques on our platform, but you’ll understand if I’m vague on the details here
Conversely, one-off spam attempts will pass the CAPTCHA test when they are done manually – so you can’t rely on them 100% anyway, and should always keep an eye on what user content is being posted on your sites.
I agree, but personally it doesn’t bother me because my details are already filled out by the time I get to the comment form, or the Form History helps if it’s my first time commenting on a particular blog article.
Hi Gemma, thanks once again for reading! You are correct – for a lot of people who are savvy with their browsers, form history and saved details are a big help. However, when we design these forms, and indeed any other element on the web, we must provision for those who, for example, have form history disabled. One example might be if a reader was accessing a given site from a public computer, or a work computer maybe.
These are the differences between adequate design, and great design!
CAPTCHA is actually another topic that I’m currently researching and preparing a presentation on, funnily enough. I consider CAPTCHA’s to be a necessary evil. It would be a much better experience for the average user if they weren’t needed, but they are in fact a very effective way of deterring spam. They should be used as a safe-guard as opposed to a persistant feature i.e. if a form is filled in incorrectly several times, then present a CAPTCHA. I don’t want to go into too much detail, as I’ll need some material for that post!
Thank you for having me!
Haha I was wondering because half the time the CAPTCHA is so complicated that even I can’t read them. I’ve been known to give up and leave a site because of it.
CAPTCHA’s aren’t a necessary evil for users though, but for those that own and moderate sites as they are the ones that trawl through spam without them.
I think a lot of users don’t realise, or forget this, when having to fill them in, but from experience having them is much more painless than potentially losing a couple of responses to them
With regard to the ‘detterent’ effect of CAPTCHAs, I did some experiments a while back using a ‘fake CAPTCHA’, in other words one where the image is a fixed aspect, and doesn’t change every time. I was interested to know (a) whether anyone noticed the challenge was always they same [they didn't] and (b) whether it was effective in preventing spam (whilst ‘fake’ they still had to enter what they though it said, and that had to match) – and yes, the fake CAPTCHA was just as effective as a real one.
Now clearly I’m not advocating that for a high profile site, but for the average Joe’s system it could be a useful stepping-stone if real CAPTCHA integration is an issue.
I completely agree (and have just noticed that this site does exactly what you mentioned so you type in your details first and THEN add your discussion!).
Are you talking specifically about the layout of comment forms, over contact forms? If so, then I agree with you totally and implement a comment form on my own site that is nothing like my contact form, but laid out so that you can enter your comments first and fill out your details afterwards.
Interesting points made, thanks for sharing!
I agree with your article. But I think CAPTCHA is more irritating to the end-users than a contact form with too many fields. Many CAPTCHA text styles are, um, “wild”.. you can’t read a damn letter! I try submitting such forms once, and if it fails, I simply don’t bother re-entering the CAPTCHA code. Sadly, this is unavoidable on websites you want to register your account on.
Maybe a more logical arrangement for form fields would be Name, Comment fields with the submit button on the left side and other optional fields like email, website,etc. on the right side. Just a thought…
Anyway, another excellent article mate!
I think you’ve made an excellent point Dan, and now you’ve brought it up, I’m very surprised I’ve never seen this discussed before.
I’ll definitely be using this – I can’t see any disadvantages.
What are your thoughts on optional name / email / website etc for comments?
I suspect I’m not the only one here wryly amused to see a discussion about blog comment systems and captchas being abused by people peddling links to their own sites.
Assuming such comments have been manually posted (so leaping the captcha barrier) I think that points to the need for a system to force some comments through a moderation system – based on a concept of poster reputation and trust. Clearly the definition of ‘reputation and trust’ is a massive topic in itself, but one can start with simple system based on posting history, and perhaps focus on posts with links.
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