Imperfect

reducing contact friction

I'm grateful to have received any emails from people like you. Although, there's always room to reduce contact friction.

Thinking about how I frequent visit blogs and other websites, you should be able to email me with little to no difficulty while anywhere on my site. Emailing should be a breeze even within your mobile device's web browser.

Let's put myself in your shoes. I finish reading a post, then see a Reply by email link. The arrow indicates an external link but where does it lead to? Savvy visitors would say it opens your mail client when clicked. Would the average Joe know that, let alone what my email address is to email me a different way? Finally, I tap the link on my mobile device. Nothing happens because I don't have a mobile mail client installed nor configured.

I could tap then hold the link to open a context menu. Then, I could copy my email address. It's not that simple, though.

First, that wouldn't just grab my email address. It would grab the full mailto: link. That also includes the subject parameter to default it to the page title, as described in reply by email. Next, even though savvy visitors have found my email address this way, they note that it isn't the smoothest experience either. How much longer must I put visitors through all this work just to contact me?

Let me clean up my language to make it clear what clicking the link does. Instead of the anemic Reply by email, let's opt for Email me via your mail client. Got a mail client on your device that can send me an email this way? Great, click the link. If you don't... there has to be even easier ways to contact me then.

With no mail client to send email with, what could be easier than showcasing my email address in plaintext? It's not like I'm worried about robots anyway. You can remember it for when you get to a device with a mail client. Better yet, you can copy and paste it where needed if you have a webmail client like Proton.

However, this option still makes you perform either option to enter my email address into your client. How can I reduce friction even further for those unsatisfied with the above?

I could use Letterbird to create a free, mobile-friendly contact form. I appreciate its minimalism and straightforwardness. The free tier customization offered is slim yet sufficient: name (title), bio (message), and light mode and accent colors. For the accent color, I'd recommend using colors lighter than black or darker than white for adequate form field contrast. I find the additional options for marking emails from Letterbird and requiring a subject more than welcome.

As far as I know, only upgraded Bear Blog accounts can embed JavaScript like what Letterbird's embed uses into post content. That should work in my favor. I'd rather avoid such elements to accommodate Atom and RSS feed subscribers, as well as those who disabled JavaScript or third-party scripts.

The only other option is linking to my Letterbird page. It has the benefit of showing the form on the page as expected, no matter what settings are disabled. I can add an option to open it in a new tab too. This allows visitors who want to read, reference, or incorporate part of my content into their message to do as such easily.

With this contact infrastructure revamp, why not build a dedicated contact page? I can save navbar space for future pages by moving my blog's Atom and RSS feed links into such a page. Looking at how I drafted these new contact touchpoints, what stops me from replacing my post template? Yes, I have to manually redo the previously applied template for all prior posts. That's a small enough price to pay for making contact easier.

In short, here's what I did:

However, does any of this solve the root issue of feeling like I lack connections through this creative medium? Do any of my blind spots exacerbate the problem? Maybe you can be the one to help me out here.

Behold the final product:

Want to reach out? Connect with me however you prefer: