You know how sometimes you have to write letters or requests for information using forms on web pages? For example, you want to submit a ticket to technical support; they lead you to a “ticket” web page, where you input your name, email address, and often your password as well–and then type your message.

Here’s my question: why is it that every danged form like that has a “message” field about the size of a large postage stamp??? I hate that. Do the people who make these pages enjoy typing in text boxes only large enough to contain a half dozen words? It makes it impossible to write any message of length. I know that some sites want you to keep it brief, but dammit, just tell us, don’t squeeze us into some ridiculously tiny box. I have even seen these micro-boxes on pages where you are expected to write long messages. What are people thinking?

In designing this site, one of the things I did was to redesign the comments pop-up window so the message box was comfortably large. I wish more people would do that…

Another pet peeve: forms demanding that you include all sorts of useless information, especially email addresses. I hate spam, and I am fully aware that if my email address is accessible anywhere on a page, even if only in the HTML code, spambots can and will find it and I will be inundated with the junk before long. Unless it’s absolutely necessary, please don’t require that kind of stuff.