Contact Us ?

[Josh]

Halfway computer literate people install a google toolbar on IE (which they don't use, because they're computer literate and usea real browser) and tie the "mailto" protocol to the "gmail notifier" that gets installed.

Voila, mailto links open a new tab in your browser of choice and automatically loads gmail, creating a new message to the correct location so long as you're logged in.

Similar procedures work for every webmail client...Similar procedures also work on almost all smartphones, MAC, Linux, etc.

As a techie, 99.9% of people who are "computer literate" don't know enough about computers to figure out that they don't know a thing about computers.

The above notwithstanding, for website development, it's best to design for the masses. Possibly every visitor will know how to use a contact form. If any percentage of your audience gets lost because of something avoidable, that's just foolish.

 

[scagnt83]

As a techie, 99.9% of people who are "computer literate" don't know enough about computers to figure out that they don't know a thing about computers.

And this is exactly why people dislike "techies". Because they always try to make non techies feel stupid.
But its great to know that you are smarter than 99.9% of us.


Another term for "literate" is "versed".
And there is a very big difference in being "versed" on a subject vs. being "well versed".


As for changing the protocols in the "mail to" in your default settings:
It is easy if the email you need is already listed.
But for most people it is not. (my computer will only show outlook, outlook express, & hotmail)

And people like me who hate toolbars on browsers, will refuse to download needless crap just to make the life of a few lazy web designers easy.

Not only that, but I have 3 different email accounts that I use depending on what I am doing. Who is to say that even if I change my default it will be the one I want to use for that particular thing.

Long story short, for the average person who uses a computer each day, it is not necessarily easy.
And it is becoming poor form to use the default "mail to" link on a site.