Re: Accessibility and mailto links

Graham,

At 05:34 2001-06-05 +0100, Graham Oliver wrote:
>Hi Kynn
>Yes I see it in Opera, under File, Preferences, Email
>As for whether this is a real problem or a theoretical
>one, I am not sure.
>I personally find it annoying when my browser chooses
>to launch an email client I don't use (I use web based
>email), but alternatively in this response
>http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2001AprJun/0621.html
>Miraz says she doesn't like form based 'email'.
>But these are basically only annoyances that impact on
>usability.
>
>I have to make recommendations for the best way to get
>site feedback in terms of accessibility, so I am on an
>intelligence gathering exercise.

I agree with Miraz - If I cannot find an email address (If I really need to I may spend uop to half an hour poking around a site to find one!) or find a waty to send *myself* a copy from a web-based form, I either do not send a message, or do not buy the product, or whatever. It has to be really, really URGENT to get me to use a form in such a case.

If you're seeking the "best way to get feedback", a web form is not the way, in my opinion: you'll have people electing not to send any feedback, because the can't keep a record of what they're sending to whom.

The best alternative would probably be to provide both an email link and a form.

BTW, I also encode a page name for the subject in the email links for my sites: that way I'll know what people are actually commenting on - at least in most cases. That's somewhat harder to do if you have access to server-side programming, and impossible if you don't.

Cheers,

Marjolein Katsma
HomeSite Help - http://hshelp.com/
Bookstore for Webmasters - http://hshelp.com/bookstore/bookstore.html

Received on Tuesday, 5 June 2001 11:59:01 UTC