While most countries don't have "zip" codes, the majority--with Hong Kong and Ireland being notable exceptions--do have "postal" codes. That's typically what you'll see on forms created for an international audience since folks with zip codes can identify with the term postal code, but not vice versa.
For the UI, the postal code is as simple as creating a field that can handle input for a variety of formats...it's the validation on the backend that gets ugly. One assumes there are standard look up files for developers to add to applications. When recently creating a style guide, I found the Universal Postal Union site (http://www.upu.int/post_code/en/postal_addressing_systems_member_countr ies.shtml) to be particularly helpful. It gives postal code and addressing formats for all of its member countries. The trick is that you'd have to survey the individual countries to ensure that you're creating a general design that includes fields that cover the needs of the countries in your audience. Surely someone has distilled this into a good catch-all format... Typically what you see is some arrangement of these fields: *Address line 1 Address line 2 *City State/Province/Region *Postal Code (only required if there is one...again backend validation) *Country (may default to the country where the majority of users reside) -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Josh Evnin Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 2:31 PM To: ixda Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Capturing International Addresses Hey IxDAers, I'm working on a system that will have users input addresses of locations around the world. Has anyone seen or used a format that works well for this? There will be a lot of US-based addresses, but also an equal number of international addresses. What fields do you present? For example, ZIP Codes are only applicable in the US...so why present it to the rest of the world? So, what have you seen or used? Thanks! Josh ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ *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
