If you have a website with an online form, you will inevitably be the target of a robot targeting your form to send out spam to you and others. Should you be lucky enough to run a popular website, you’re probably drowning in the unwanted email messages.

Not only does form spam waste your time, but it also makes it more likely that you could miss a legitimate contact because you’re going thru all the spam emails so quickly. Fortunately there is an easy way to significantly reduce form spam.

The most common method is CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart), which was created as a means of distinguishing between people and web robots, so that websites could offer their resources to individuals without being exploited by robots. CAPTCHA has gained popularity for its effectiveness in reducing spam, false/automatic registrations, etc. However, a valid concern has started to grow regarding its accessibility and usability; which could result in your site missing out on prospective contacts.

Many people find it difficult and sometimes impossible to pass this verification method. This has led to many people searching for an alternative way to tell computers and humans apart.

SOME ALTERNATIVES INCLUDE

Photo/Image CAPTCHA
The main problem with ordinary CAPTCHA is that text needs to be distorted and made somewhat unreadable to be able to fool computers.
With Photo/Image CAPTCHA the user is presented with several images and needs to select those that have, for example, kittens on them.

• Pros:  This is an easy task for a human but virtually impossible for a computer.
• Cons:  The downside to Image CAPTCHA is that in most cases the user must have JavaScript turned on in order to use.

Honey Traps/Hidden Fields
The idea here is to include a form field, which is hidden with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), and give it a name to encourage robots to fill it in, such as “email 2.” The human user will never fill it in because they don’t even know it’s there, but the robot won’t be able to tell the difference. Therefore, when this field on the form is submitted, it will be rejected.

• Pros:  This is often seamless for end-users and will nearly always catch robots since they will always try to fill in the field.
• Cons:  A downside to this is that assistive technologies may not be able to tell the difference either, so their users may not know not to complete it.  It could also be confusing for someone who has deactivated CSS; however, you can be clear on what the field is trying to do, since the robots wouldn't actually read or understand the directions.

Voice CAPTCHA
In this method, the user is given the option to hear the verification code rather than seeing it. The user needs to activate the file containing the audio code and can then enter the code in the provided field and proceed.

•  Pros:  This option is appropriate for users that are blind or have visual impairments.
• Cons:  Users that are deaf may still have problems using it, and not every user has speakers.

Math Problems/Simple Questions
Instead of the wild squiggles that need to be deciphered, the user has to answer a simple math question. A common example would be “2 + 2” or “What is the last letter of the English alphabet?”. The user has to enter the answer and if it’s correct, the next page will load.

• Pros:  Simple questions and math problems will generally work for most users, yet robots will not actually read any of the text to be able to complete the request.
• Cons:  It may be difficult for non English speaking users to quickly provide the answer and it does make people slow down, if even for a second to read and answer the question.

Easy Tasks
A form can contain a checkbox that is checked by default. The checkbox can have a label such as “Uncheck box if you are a human”.
If this option is chosen, you should make sure that the task is truly easy to follow.

• Pros:  Since robots will not read this information and not complete the simple task, it is often very effective.
• Cons:  It is still an extra step for a user and can be an inconvenience.

Confirmation Page
After the user enters their information they click on a Submit button to go to the next page. The next page contains the previously entered information and a Confirm button. This prevents robots from successfully entering information because they normally only focus on field containing pages.

• Pros:  This is easy for end users to just click submit or confirm again, while making it so robots will not follow the instructions.
• Cons:  When using this option, make sure the page clearly explains to the user what is going to happen.  Otherwise, some users may assume that after clicking the Submit button, they can leave your site.

You can see that there are many alternatives to CAPTCHA and they are only limited by your imagination. Regardless of which option you decide to use, make sure that your CAPTCHA is fully accessible to all people.