[delish]

>I don't want to fill out your contact form

Yes -- and companies or governments don't want to be _contacted_ by you. It's a cost to them. The median "contact us for a sales quote" form is clearer and has less friction than the median "file a complaint / ask a question" form.

One reason not in the article people might use forms instead of email is the "set and setting" of being a guest on a website and filling out their form. When in "your" email inbox as opposed to on "someone else's" site, you may conduct yourself differently.

An example of this is the sometimes-onerous Github issue template questions. I'm not arguing they're not necessary, but they do two things: mandate required information and _imply_ that you are a guest and you must hold yourself to someone else's communication norms.

[Aurornis]

> but they do two things: mandate required information and _imply_ that you are a guest and you must hold yourself to someone else's communication norms.

To be honest, tools like this do quite a good job of filtering out people who want you to bend over backward for them. If someone is so stubborn that they refuse to take a couple minutes to fill out someone’s form, they’re likely to be very demanding and uncooperative with every future engagement.

Of course, these people never see themselves as such.

[carlosjobim]

> Yes -- and companies or governments don't want to be _contacted_ by you.

For a company to make a sale, there needs to be a way for the client to contact them, a way to make a purchase. Having crap contact forms makes as much sense as having restaurant waiters spit clients in the face to greet them. With the world we're living in that might become the norm in a few years or months.

[qingcharles]

I've worked for client who spend a lot of money optimizing form fill-out rates down to the nth degree.

I once worked on a mortgage form. It had a pic of a call center person next to it. I persuaded my boss to try a pic of a dog with a tie, glasses and headset I found instead. It increased the conversion rate by 17%.

People are weird.

[ycombinator_acc]

Correlation is not causation.