Making an Elegant Contact Card With OnePage

The web is rapidly becoming a big part of our lives and whether we realize it or not, we often have accounts with a wide range of web services or apps. When communicating with people online, why bother limiting them to a single contact method instead of just giving them a way to choose the method for themselves?

This is where OnePage comes in. OnePage offers an easy way to create a virtual contact card that can easily be distributed to provide other visitors with a means of contacting you through several services. The process of contacting users of the service can be made even quicker and easier when offering many different methods of contact and it merely becomes a matter of convenience when deciding which method to use. Find out more about OnePage inside the article.

Overview

OnePage is a shiny new web app that allows anyone to create their own online virtual business card for others to contact them easily through a variety of services. With support for many different contact methods, it can be an easy way to provide contacts with a method of communication through several services.

As well as this, it’s also even possible to embed the card in existing websites so visitors can reach you even easier. Overall, the app offers an extremely easy way for anyone to create and maintain an online hub for their connections to ensure easy communication.

Interface

The interface of the OnePage app is really simple and easy to use, with everything within quick grasp when required. Since the app takes a quite minimalistic approach, there aren’t many sections of the app, so almost every section of it follows the same clean design.

A lot of the website employs JavaScript to make the experience that extra bit smooth and even the contact cards themselves are animated. As well as this, the embedded contact cards follow the consistent design of the main site so it can easily be integrated into any website without having to worry about an out-of-place design.

Create an Account

OnePage offers several ways to sign into the app, with support for the connection with several other popular apps. For the purposes of this demonstration, I’m creating a OnePage account that’s connected to my Twitter account and after authorizing the app, you’ll be taken to another page where you’re required to enter an email address.

After this is complete, you’ll be able to choose your OnePage URL from which other people can access your contact card. It’s easier to choose something memorable but still professional if you’re looking to use the app for business or freelance purposes and, as long as the username is available, it will be automatically assigned to your card.

Setup Your Contact Card

Add Personal Information

As well as offering many methods for other people to contact you through the OnePage system, each contact card shows a short biography of the user in question, consisting of information such as name, current education or employment position, a short biography snippet and also a display picture. This can be edited from the Edit Card page and once the changes have been made, they’re instantly reflected in the WYSIWYG-like editor.

Linking with other services automatically imports any relevant data into this system such as entered locations and saved display pictures, so, unless you’re just creating a normal account, you can expect your name, location, picture and bio to be pulled directly from the site you’re connecting with.

Add Contact Methods

One of OnePage’s most important features is its range of services that can be added to a user’s contact card. They support the majority of the most popular social networks as well as bookmarking websites, instant messaging clients and more.

To add contact methods to the account, simply navigate to the contact card editing page and you will be presented with a button from which contact points can be added. Each of the contact methods is categorized based on the type of service it is, whether that be news feeds, media or social networks. Once chosen, you’ll then be given the chance to enter your username for that service.

If there’s more than one entry for that method (such as a case where you have two accounts with that specific service), OnePage even allows you to add an optional tag explaining to the viewers of your card what that specific one is for.

Share Contact Card

Once the contact card is complete, you can then begin to distribute the URL to other people. OnePage offers the ability to do this easily via Twitter and Facebook simply by navigating to the card’s page and then doing it through one of the links below it. However, there’s also a slightly better option of doing this through the Share section of the app. When doing it this way, it’s possible to edit the entry that will be posted to the chosen social network and you’re then given the option of updating your Twitter profile’s location field to your OnePage contact card.

Additionally, OnePage offers the ability to embed the contact card within another website using a small JavaScript snippet. This is particularly customizable as would be expected but it’s still an easy replacement to a contact form and a way of providing website visitors with a means of contacting you.

Final Thoughts

I found OnePage to be a really interesting solution to the annoying problem of having to give out contact details for different website accounts. Because everything’s in one place, it can often speed up the whole process of giving these out and generally provide convenience all round.

The app is extremely straightforward, easy to use, and provides users with everything that you’d expect from the service. Though it offers many methods of contact, I think the app would, overall, have more appeal if it offered several more features to make it stand out — though I don’t think it really needs them. Overall, it offers an easy and efficient way of managing contact methods for distribution and dare I say, goes about it the right way.