okay guys and gals, we have to talk about this one.

I am noticing a trend on many "made in Nigeria" websites.  Either that or it existed before but I am just now noticing such sites:  Many of our sites have both a "feedback" and a "contact us" page.  To make matters even more interesting, though they are separate pages, both pages actually have forms on them. Sometimes the forms have the same fields and other times they differ ranging from slightly to completely.

Question? Is there really a difference b/w feedback and contact us?  I mean, wouldn't it make more sense to have just the one form then maybe in a dropdown conditionally have "feedback" selected?  Just curious.

Oya, the floor is open and the DJ (that would be moi  ) has just played the song of the night.  E je ka jo, bi ko nu.

Nope! Feedback form is what customer think of site---FEEL AND LOOK to give webmaster/ownership of the site a feedback, that is what feedback form is all about.

Contact form is what customer reach the owner of the site for asking questions on product/service they concern upon their decision whether should they buy or not as well as any issues on site they trouble with, that is what contact form is all about.

Some use both feedback form and contact form when all field boxes look the same! Some use fancy feedback form differently than contact form.

Mostly i noticed on "made in Nigeria" sites, all contact forms that has no email-form submission dynamically, just TEXT INFO you read where to contact to. Because I think most web designers who create that site ARE NOT WEB PROGRAMMER to employ actions/behaviors resulting in PHP, XML, HTML, JAVASCRIPT, ACTIONSCRIPT, ASP, JAVA, goes on. . .on the fly website. They web designers incorporate the free HTML/PHP scripts from google.com or webmaster-free-sources sites installing on their site that they no understand how to modify the coding.

oookay,

if that is the case, then the way they exist on "made in Nigeria" sites is wrong then. How else would you explain this, for instance? http://www.zenithbank.com/feedback.cfm . Hint: it has no fields that have to do with the user experience.

Be that as it may, why have 2 different forms? What does that do to maintenance? I understand if the feedback is being handled by a third-party but where everything is handled in-house, in my opinion, they might as well combine everything into one form. Then using, for instance, a name-value pair (like index.php?option=feedback), you send the user to a form with a dropdown and dynamically determine which dropdown option to render as "selected". If need be, you could also dynamically display instructions so that if the option is indeed a feedback, you include text like, "tell us what you think of our site".

CONCLUSION:
I am now beginning to think that those of us in Nigeria who employ this technique have no idea from Adam what the difference b/w the 2 is.

Contact Us should contain information about how the business owner can be reached for further enquiries or other business arrangement. Feedback is for capturing users comments and advice. Feedback is use for one way communication in most cases while Contact Us provide interface or information on means of two way communication

yep. abidemi made sense

yawa-ti-de:


CONCLUSION:
I am now beginning to think that those of us in Nigeria who employ this technique have no idea from Adam what the difference b/w the 2 is.

Hmmm ITK

webdezzi:
state your case, letz debate

Id like to think Feedback is for specific issues

and Contact us for Any issue.

It used to befuddle me too

@yawa
just like banners, some call it banner, some top bar, others call it "The upper part where you put the logo"

like Lagbaja sang

oro wa ti ye ra, idea lo ku (we quite understand each other, thats if we are not pretending), if i fire and you dodge i dont care

The reason for having both on a site is to get response or question? whichever they click on, i think its the job of each department to forward it to the right department, since they are not robots

Most ppl dont know what the diff is, they just click on whichever they see, post their questions and close the window (from experience and google analytics, Thats how serious clients behave, they dont waste time on your website)

its left to you to decide if you want to reach out to these fraction by having more reach on your site or spending time optimizing your website for critics

@webdezzi:

Which brings me back to my point: I don't think it is efficient to have 2 separate pages that do the same thing. Worse case, link to the same page but tack on a name/value pair that if say, "feedback", you hide certain fields and do same with "contact us". I have done this numerous times. Again, I think it is highly inefficient to have 2 separate pages. As you said, on the backend, depending on for example, what someone selects in say, a dropdown, you could route the email to a certain individual.

It is called reuse and abstraction and I am all for those 2.

it's not efficient but in this scenarios, it helps.

to answer ur main question, NO, feedback and contact us are not the same

Most people don't know what the diff is, they just click on whichever they see, post their questions and close the window (from experience and google analytics, Thats how serious clients behave, they don't waste time on your website)

So why confuse them the more?  Why not unify the process so as to minimize the confusion?  I mean, even I was confused, hence this post.

its left to you to decide if you want to reach out to these fraction by having more reach on your site or spending time optimizing your website for critics

I am afraid I don't quite understand what you mean here but will say that many sites (I have worked for many) have a "feedback" link that "follows" the user.  Once clicked, the user fills out the form, someone in some department collects the data and forwards such data to the right department in the event that it warrants action.  And yes, the user in such cases serves as the critic.  Serious sites need to listen to such critics and*continuously* improve the user experience otherwise they lose the customer to the competition.  Try www.delta.com, search for "full search option", click to go to that page and look to your bottom right for an example.  Hint: look for the "rotating" "+" sign.

to answer ur main question, NO, feedback and contact us are not the same

Thanks for finally and actually answering the question at hand.  I really appreciate it. The more posts I read, the better I myself am understanding the issue, what the problem seems to be and most importantly, possible solutions.

I am not going to make you get the picture, others will

then so be it. I await their response(s)

others will get the picture and NOT others will make you get the picture

I am not going to make you get the picture, others will

Trying to match the aforementioned quote with your latest one, I am now more confused than ever. Thanks.

@all
i totally concor with abidemi. thats ow i use those pages. check out my site http://www.mcquillonline.com to how i use those pages

"Contact us" contains information of the location or address or phone numbers of the owner of the business, while "feedback" contains a form where in you can fill ur opinion on things on the site and u get a reply.