You can’t buy trust

It helps if you can minimise a person’s risk. That’s why simpleContact Lite is more than just a free PHP contact form solution. You can also use it to confirm that simpleContact Pro will install successfully on your website. Its interface is consistent with Pro, and you can migrate your settings and data when you decide to upgrade.

We all want to try before we buy. That’s why there’s a live demo that you can use to explore the admin interface in full and decide whether it will satisfy your needs.

… But there’s no substitute for unbiased word of mouth. Proof that someone went first, spent their money, and were happy with the result. Happy enough that they wanted to share the experience.

Don’t take my word for it

It’s time I shared some of the feedback I’ve received since I released these applications. I’ve added a buzz page to this website which contains comments from real users of Lite and early-adopters of Pro.

Businesses, design agencies, freelance web designers and marketers – it’s quite a mixed bag! Maybe something in there means something to you.

On an unrelated note, I completed a maintenance upgrade to the support forums last weekend. It’s now dressed in a snappy shade of green and should be more useful than before.

Both simpleContact Pro and Lite play nice with the popular blogging platform WordPress. They’re PHP/MySQL based so they can be hosted on the same website, even sharing a database. As a matter of fact they’re both installed on this website…

If you’ve installed WordPress you’ll find that the process with SCP is familiar (which is no coincidence). However, SCP is not a WordPress plugin. It’s a separate and self-contained application. This means that some people might prefer it to be more integrated with their blog that it currently is.

Enter Stephen Meehan of d3creative, a talented designer and personal friend of mine. He’s wrote a tutorial on his blog explaining how to add the simpleContact Pro contact form to a WordPress page template. It involves a bit of copying and pasting, but there’s nothing to intimidate someone who’s used to bending WordPress to their will.

Let me know what you think! I’m tempted to record a screencast video to describe this process…

At the time of writing, it has 203 votes with an average score of 9.38 / 10. Only one product in the same category has more votes.

I have you in my sights

Seriously though, I’d like to take a moment to thank the early adopters. The official launch of this website is coming (very) soon but I’ve already had a great response from users. I’ve had some valuable feedback and I’m looking forward to making this product better and better for everyone that uses it.

I would prefer you to read all his remarks in context so I will refrain from reproducing his review in full, except to note his conclusions and feedback.

For $25 you can’t go far wrong with simpleContact Pro. Alex also has a Lite version which is free but that’s obviously less advanced. Fortunately you can try the Lite version and upgrade to Pro at a later date – which seems to be a fairly painless process. I’m pretty impressed with the level of customisation available with the form builder; I’ve used some horrendous CMS plugins that aspired to similar things and all of them fell short. If you need a more comprehensive contact form manager/builder for your website, I thoroughly recommend giving simpleContact a try (in either Lite or Pro flavour).

A good review is a two-way street that not only recognises the positive aspects of a product, but which notes its present shortcomings. If I wanted unmitigated praise I’d ask my mother to write one! Steven raised the following points:

Documentation

He observed that the documentation was insufficient on the subject of integrating the forms with a website. I took steps to expand and clarify the instructions in response.

Name fields separation

This is a matter of personal taste. I have always preferred separate first and last name fields on forms. This is mainly because it makes the collected data easier to use without looking either broken or comically formal (”Hi Alex Hardy”). As always, if I see significant demand for a combined name field I will give it due consideration.

Security

Two points were raised here: That he was unsure what level of validation was present on the forms, and that a CAPTCHA might be reassuring for users from a security point of view.

There are actually two layers of validation on the forms. The first is client-side JavaScript, which helps to prevent human error. This is backed up by server-side checks in PHP to help keep the spammers out. I always consider ways to improve that protection and I have several ideas for future releases. As a user of my own product, I can vouch that I currently receive practically no spam through my forms.

I’m not a fan of CAPTCHAs. I’ve been vocal about my objections to them in the past (and no doubt in future). I’m not too inflexible to yield to popular request though, so I wrote a hack for reCAPTCHA support on the forums. In future I intend to add a “spam challenge” field option of the type Steven describes, as can be seen on Building Findable Websites.

Disclosure

The advertising the Steven dutifully mentions was an experimental placement to promote simpleContact Lite prior to the release of Pro. When its term was concluded I decided to postpone further blog adverts. Although he undertakes paid reviews this one was not – my original invitation was to a private beta that I held. Although he was unable to participate due to work commitments he was kind enough to write this review. Steven’s reviews are always conducted with total objectivity and I gratefully accept his criticism.