You seem to be mixing several things here: 1) how users enter and edit
address info, 2) how users view the available address, 3) how you store the
address info, and 4) how you use the stored data.
What we do in our CRM application on these points is:
1) Users enter and edit address info through a multi-field form in which
street, city, zip... are clearly separated. This is easier for everyone: we
do not need to try to parse the addresses, and users know what is what, and
are less likely to enter addresses that will later make no sense to them.
2) We show the address as a single field, so it is easy to read and copy if
necessary. The USA White House address would appear like this:
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
United States of America
3) The database stores each separate field but also has a combined Full
address field that collects the data from the individual fields. This gives
users the freedom to make various queries based on address info; for
example, see all people located in Boston.
4) We have an inbuilt feature that can feed the full address to mapping
services. For example, the White House address is fed to the search field in
Google maps as: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, United
States of America.
I do not think you should replace the 5-field address form, just put
together the address info into an additional field.
Dimiter Simov (Jimmy)
Lucrat Ltd. www.lucrat.net
Netage Solutions Inc. www.netagesolutions.com
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
jonathan berger
Sent: Tue, Dec 22, 2009 7:01
To: [email protected]
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] REQ: Suggestions for best-practices or research on
single-field address forms
Hi All,
I want to replace the typical 5-field address form (Street 1, Street
2, City, State, Zip) with a single field that takes a string and sends
it to google for geocoding and error-checking. Technically its a big
win, and it'll greatly simplify the amount of stuff in the address
form, but I'm concerned that users are comfortable with those 5 fields
and may be confused by the single-field address form that lacks (e.g.)
the familiar "state" dropdown.
Does anyone know of research or best practices regarding usability and
single-field addresses?
Thanks,
j
--
_________________________
@jonathanpberger
http://www.marketpublique.com
http://www.jonathanpberger.com
718.930.2165
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