Don’t add a character limit

This is a rather simple tip, but an important one. Occasionally I still encounter form fields with a maximum number of characters. Usually, it’s some nonsense like “Max 1.000 characters” or something like that. I particularly see this with larger coörporations. 

I get it, you probably get thousands of messages a day, and you don’t want your staff to waste time reading a novel someone sends in. However, it’s not user friendly. Some problems simply take some time to explain, or some people are just wordy by default.

You should adjust to them, not the other way around. Let your customers write to you how they want to, don’t stop them from trying to find help. Trust me, they’ll appreciate it.