Engagement without interactivity
Searching and being searchable
Technical interactivity
Engagement and interactivity using just one page
Interactivity with two or more pages
Forums, message boards, and chat
Engagement and Interactivy
Jeff Williamson
Northern Virginia Community College
www.nvcc.edu/home/nvwillj/html-interactivity/
nvwillj@nvcc.edu
E-mail response
1. Mailto: links - It is always good practice to sign your pages with an e-mail address and name somewhere. I would even suggest an inviting tag line:
Can't find something? Have a comment? E-mail the author, Jeff Williamson, at nvwillj@nvcc.eduvs
Comments to webmaster
2. METHOD="POST" forms - Even more inviting or useful is to use forms with a METHOD="POST". These get into more than I have time to write up, but Joe Barta has a nice summary of form coding, the POST method, and the required software to read POST form data on his site at
junior.apk.net/~jbarta/tutor/forms/index.html
In case it's not clear: a METHOD="POST" form uses the same technology as a mailto: link. The advantage is that you can use any form elements - lists, radio buttons, check boxes, text fields, etc., to gain more information in more standardized layout than you would get from a regular e-mail
3. Formmail perl script - A teenage named Matt Wright wrote some CGI scripts a while back that are all over the net now. A popular one is formmail. Formmail takes info from a form and mails it from the server to one or more designated recipients. There are some nice settings to format the information, but the chief advantage of formmail is that it does not require the user's browser to have valid e-mail settings. More on that later.
The chief disadvantage of formmail is that it must be installed on a web server somewhere. Most webmasters and network administrators are justifiably leery of CGI scripts and will not install them.
However you can find freely-provided (though usually advertiser supported) variations of formmail in a number of places on the net. One well documented and dependable one is at www.response-o-matic.com. (One example. Another). The Free Site has links to several other formmail variations at www.123go.com/drw/webs/form.htm
4. Listservs. You can also establish a listserv for users of your site. Several free services have sprung up for these. One that I have used and liked is at www.onelist.com. Another is www.listbot.com.
Keep in mind, too, that listservs can have different dynamics - they don't have to be all-to-all communications. Many good ones are one to many, like word of the day lists.