Redesigning contact form

Question

Contact form can have many fields but the minimum required fields are name, email and text field (message box). Name and email are usually located above message box. To simplify and make smaller in size my contact form I removed name field and moved email field under the message box. I think if person wants he/she can write a name in a message box like "Hello,. my name is..."

My main reasons for doing this were: it looks better, contact from takes less space and it has less cognitive load as there are less fields to be filled.

Am I right, did it reduce cognitive load?

Here is an example of a complex design from ivomynttinen.com where it's kind of a template that client has to fill. But client can describe all that in a message box in a way that is convenient to him. Options in drop downs menu make it restrictive and clients might not have all the answers yet so I decided to go with contact from as simple as it can be.

As you see on the picture below, my contact form is really simple.

Did my contact form reduced cognitive load and is more user friendly as it appears like it's less to type?

Answer 1

Your contact form certainly looks simpler! I suggest you keep the Let's work together title as is because it's better than Let's make a great project, and in message box you and ask for a specific message with a placeholder like: Your professional introduction

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Here are some standard patterns of contact forms to refer:
http://ui-patterns.com/users/1/collections/contact_form/screenshots

Answer 2

Conversation forms are trending a lot these days. The reason that this happens is because with this way you encourage the user to interact with the form by engaging them in a friendly dialogue instead of interrogating them.

I cannot be sure whether the user's cognitive load is reduced, but I can say that it appears to

• friendlier, because it is more like a conversation that you have with the UI
• simpler, because it looks smaller

The only drawback that the first form might have is the fact that it is not as conventional as the second form. Users are more used to a form like the second, but that doesn't mean that it is better. It would be very interesting to run a test to see if the first form increases the number of people contacted you.

Personally, I would advise you to keep the second, especially when it is your portfolio that we are talking about.

Why does it seem smaller in length?

^{download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups}