Right. Making sure the actual email address is used in the mailto is important - 'contact us' ones do frustrate me, but there are plugins for browsers like Firefox that allow such links to be redirected to my webmail (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc) rather than Outlook. The address will appear in the status bar though even if it's been called 'contact us' which would allow a user to write it down and type it in manually, but knowing that it appears in the status bar takes some computer know-how which a surprising number of people don't have. You want things to be as a simple and easy as people if you are dealing with a wide and varied audience.
An option to satisfy everyone would be to provide both a linked and a text-based version of the email address, though it might look a little redundant and clumsy. <a href="mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]">[EMAIL PROTECTED]</a> - [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can usually highlight the link without clicking on it to copy/paste as well, but it's sometimes a challenge when there's no other text around it. As long as the actual address is legible and not replaced with 'contact us,' I think most people will be able to manage to send an email to you one way or another. It just might involve the extra step of having to type it in manually. Jason On Fri, Jun 13, 2008 at 1:35 PM, tee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi Jason, > > Thanks for the response. My question however isn't about using mailto draws > attention to spam, but the mailto (direct email link) causes problem for > people who use no email client, because when you click on the link, it wants > to open up an email client. Some people find this annoying. I sometime work > at a print shop place for a client near University Campus, where, he has a > small internet cafe setup and the computers have no email clients installed, > even if they do, customers can't send email via his account anyway. His > customers go in to use the internet for all kind of reasons; not once, but > many times, I overhead frustrated comments about the direct email link, > because many sites replaced email address to 'contact us' or other keywords, > and they can't see the email address, therefor can't copy and past to their > webmail. Although, you can still see the email address at status bar when > mouse over, but you can't copy it. > > So base on these feedback, I always pay attention not to use email link but > a short contact us form or use something like 'company at xyz client com' > with no link, but I don't always get the freedom, because some clients > really must have email link, when they do, I feel I am scarifying a good > user experience. > > tee > > > On Jun 12, 2008, at 8:03 PM, Jason Ray wrote: > > I have used mailto: on the websites I have designed, which usually >> include a reference to my email and I haven't really had issues with spam. >> Spam filters on Gmail seem to be doing a fine job of filtering out the mail >> I don't want to see, so I'm not all that concerned about having my email >> address in a mailto: >> >> I don't know what others have experienced though... >> >> Jason >> >> ********************************************* >> > > > > ******************************************************************* > List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm > Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm > Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ******************************************************************* > > ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
