There's another reason, in addition to what Luke points out in his article:
Many users enter one of the components wrong. This is why the post office hasn't eliminated the redundancy on the envelope. It's not unusual for someone to get a digit wrong in the zip or to get the name of the town or state wrong. (People regularly confuse MS and MA or MA and MD, for example.) By having both the zip & the city/state, both the system (with a decent address verification system) and the post office can do error correction. Jared On Dec 14, 2007, at 6:15 PM, Dmitry Nekrasovski wrote: > Alan, > > This doesn't relate directly to your question, but Luke Wroblewski > has a > recent blog post where he examines the pros and cons of the > approach you > mention to collecting address information: > > http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?605 > > Dmitry > > On Dec 14, 2007 2:27 PM, Alan Wexelblat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> A classic example here is entering mailing addresses into a form. In >> the US, having the Zip code uniquely identifies the state, and in >> over >> 95% of cases allows you to know the town as well. And yet, every >> single form asks you for city, state, and then zip code. Why? >> Because it's not a differentiating feature. Nobody cares that it's >> 2/3 wasted effort on the user's part. You have to have a way to >> capture mailing addresses, but the usual interaction design goals >> don't really apply here. Just do it the standard way. (where here >> "standard" really means "expected"). >> >> Does this match up with your experiences? Is there another major >> category I'm missing that you find sucks up significant design cycles >> on your projects? >> >> --Alan >> ________________________________________________________________ >> *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* >> February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA >> Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ >> >> ________________________________________________________________ >> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! >> To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe >> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines >> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help >> > ________________________________________________________________ > *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* > February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA > Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
