Re: [WSG] a tiny usability question on web form
At 1/5/2010 06:19 AM, tee wrote: Was making a web form for a commercial software which clientele are mainly from EU countries, in the original form the order of the Country field. The order looks like this: address/street country state city zipcode Maybe I'd been making too many web forms for US and some Asian countries' clients, I find it creates a tiny usability issue for user to have the country field places above state, city and zipcode. From my own experience, I always use tabbing to navigate web form, in a few US sites that I did shopping and that has country, city, state and zipcode setup in a non-US format, I find them to be a usability problem because I didn't read carefully but out of habit (and this is something I expect many web users would do), entered my address expecting them to be in standard US format. My client thinks otherwise: ... from a usability standpoint it seems weird to me to for example show the Country field AFTER the State field. Why? Because the State field is depending on the Country field. I have often placed the nation before the state/province for exactly this reason, but nearly as often my clients protest that it's just too weird and unconventional and they don't want to confuse or put off their customers. One solution is to ask the nation first, perhaps in a form by itself or before the rest of the address fields are revealed. Another solution is the make the state/prov field a plain text field, not a drop-down, and then validate it after the nation is entered (or the default nation is accepted through form submission), and if invalid present a drop-down based on the nation. Another solution is to combine nation prov in the same drop-down: Afghanistan Albania ... Aruba Australia - ACT Australia - New South Wales Australia - Northern Territory Australia - Queensland Australia - South Australia Australia - Tasmania Australia - Victoria Australia - Western Australia Austria ... This wouldn't be egregiously unwieldy unless you broke out a lot of nations rather than just a few. The most common break-downs I do are for Australia, Mexico, UK, and USA. Many nations don't require or prefer a state/province/canton as part of a mailing address. Has anyone here done the leg-work to determine which nations do? On quick google I found this chart of mailing address formats around the world: http://www.bitboost.com/ref/international-address-formats.html#Formats I don't know how up-to-date it is. On the note of US-myopia it's worth pointing out that in many countries (particiularly Europe) the postal code precedes the city, e.g. 00-940 Warszawa Poland ...and some countries such as Russia are big-endians and sequence the address as nation, postal code, city, street address, recipient (although naturally they cope with the little-endian format when processing international mail). Also, remember that ZIP Code refers to the US only; everyone else calls them postal codes or equivalent. ZIP is an all-caps acronym for Zone Improvement Plan coined by the US Postal Service in 1963. Yet more reasons to query the nation first~ Regards, Paul __ Paul Novitski Juniper Webcraft Ltd. http://juniperwebcraft.com *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
RE: [WSG] a tiny usability question on web form
I'd look to the postal standards for countries that you're expecting to ship to. This Australia Post publication: http://www.auspost.com.au/correctaddress/adStand.pdf specifies formats, field lengths and type formats. It also refers to two Australian Standards for data formats: Australian Standard AS4212-1994 - Geographic Information Systems - Data dictionary for transfer of street addressing information; and, Australian Standard AS4590-1999 Interchange of Client Information. Hope that this provides a useful research direction. Regards, Peter Hislop -Original Message- From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of tee Sent: Wednesday, 6 January 2010 1:20 AM To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: [WSG] a tiny usability question on web form Was making a web form for a commercial software which clientele are mainly from EU countries, in the original form the order of the Country field. The order looks like this: address/street country state city zipcode Maybe I'd been making too many web forms for US and some Asian countries' clients, I find it creates a tiny usability issue for user to have the country field places above state, city and zipcode. From my own experience, I always use tabbing to navigate web form, in a few US sites that I did shopping and that has country, city, state and zipcode setup in a non-US format, I find them to be a usability problem because I didn't read carefully but out of habit (and this is something I expect many web users would do), entered my address expecting them to be in standard US format. My client thinks otherwise: quote: Regarding the order of the fields. I understand your background, but from a usability standpoint it seems weird to me to for example show the Country field AFTER the State field. Why? Because the State field is depending on the Country field. If a user goes from field to field and are not from the US, they will be surprised to see that only US states are available in the State field. It seems more natural to choose a country first, and then have a field update (change from selectbox with states to a input text field) BELOW that instead of ABOVE that. Is is a non-issue how the order is? For sites that cater international users, is there a more standard format for address in web form? Thanks! tee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] a tiny usability question on web form
On Jan 7, 2010, at 1:18 AM, Peter Hislop wrote: I'd look to the postal standards for countries that you're expecting to ship to. Paul, Thanks! Great tips! tee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] a tiny usability question on web form
Thanks. On Jan 5, 2010, at 4:36 PM, Elias Abunassar wrote: Try Luke Wroblewski http://visitmix.com/Articles/Web-Forms-for-People, Rosenfeld Media and Boxes Arrows. The above articles are about web form design – I am pretty familiar with that as I never able to stand ugly web form :) Here's an example where Country comes before state: https://www.discovery.apply2jobs.com/index.cfm. Scroll down to Division then select Country. This makes sense and echoes my client's take. tee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] a tiny usability question on web form
On Jan 5, 2010, at 2:38 PM, nedlud wrote: In terms of coding such a form, are you populating the state field with any information that depends on knowing what country the user is in? (or any other location dependant information in other fields?). If the answer is yes, then I'd say it's quite important to have the country field *before* state for exactly the reasons your client states. And in my experience, this is also quite normal for commerce sites of international companies. Try buying something from Amazon or Apple for examples. If there is *no* dynamic or location dependant information in the other fields, then I'd say that it doesn't matter, in a technical sense, where you put the country field. It becomes a question of taste. Having said that, I think you will find it is quite common to put country before state (that sounds almost like a political statement ;) ). The state/province doesn't populate based from the country. Now I can see the reason after seeing the discovery's form posted by Elias. I would be cautious about looking at American sites for examples of this. Many American sites are strangely myopic about the rest of the world. Coming from Asia and live in the US, I have to agree with this :) Look at big/international company sites (even ones based in America. Bigger companies see the bigger picture more clearly). This reminds me of the checkout form from Apple website. I think what Apple does with its shipping address web form makes perfect sense for international company's site, it has 4 input fields for user to enter the complete address with one label, in which State is populated upon entering zipcode and Country must be IP detectable as it shows me United State. I actually made a similar form for a 'request catalog' form years ago, however it didn't quite work for some careless users despite that the form has indication to enter complete address in bold and in different color. The form was for US customers only so no country field, still, some submitters either forgot to enter State or zipcode (it was a wander to me these are the two they would missed); after few months receiving too many in-completed addresses, I rephrased it to please enter your full address including state and zipcode, still, some people missed it. In the end I had to make the form the standard US format, one input field for each and that solved the problem. The problem might be that the server-side validation was not perfect as it couldn't' give a validation error if a user does not entered a State or Zipcode. I think this can be solved with extra JS validation to enhance the usability today. tee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
[WSG] a tiny usability question on web form
Was making a web form for a commercial software which clientele are mainly from EU countries, in the original form the order of the Country field. The order looks like this: address/street country state city zipcode Maybe I'd been making too many web forms for US and some Asian countries' clients, I find it creates a tiny usability issue for user to have the country field places above state, city and zipcode. From my own experience, I always use tabbing to navigate web form, in a few US sites that I did shopping and that has country, city, state and zipcode setup in a non-US format, I find them to be a usability problem because I didn't read carefully but out of habit (and this is something I expect many web users would do), entered my address expecting them to be in standard US format. My client thinks otherwise: quote: Regarding the order of the fields. I understand your background, but from a usability standpoint it seems weird to me to for example show the Country field AFTER the State field. Why? Because the State field is depending on the Country field. If a user goes from field to field and are not from the US, they will be surprised to see that only US states are available in the State field. It seems more natural to choose a country first, and then have a field update (change from selectbox with states to a input text field) BELOW that instead of ABOVE that. Is is a non-issue how the order is? For sites that cater international users, is there a more standard format for address in web form? Thanks! tee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] a tiny usability question on web form
Conduct research. Sent from my iPhone On Jan 5, 2010, at 9:19 AM, tee weblis...@gmail.com wrote: Was making a web form for a commercial software which clientele are mainly from EU countries, in the original form the order of the Country field. The order looks like this: address/street country state city zipcode Maybe I'd been making too many web forms for US and some Asian countries' clients, I find it creates a tiny usability issue for user to have the country field places above state, city and zipcode. From my own experience, I always use tabbing to navigate web form, in a few US sites that I did shopping and that has country, city, state and zipcode setup in a non-US format, I find them to be a usability problem because I didn't read carefully but out of habit (and this is something I expect many web users would do), entered my address expecting them to be in standard US format. My client thinks otherwise: quote: Regarding the order of the fields. I understand your background, but from a usability standpoint it seems weird to me to for example show the Country field AFTER the State field. Why? Because the State field is depending on the Country field. If a user goes from field to field and are not from the US, they will be surprised to see that only US states are available in the State field. It seems more natural to choose a country first, and then have a field update (change from selectbox with states to a input text field) BELOW that instead of ABOVE that. Is is a non-issue how the order is? For sites that cater international users, is there a more standard format for address in web form? Thanks! tee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] a tiny usability question on web form
On Jan 5, 2010, at 7:19 AM, Elias Abunassar wrote: Conduct research. Sent from my iPhone Please do not assume people don't do homework before they post :-) I did conduct research before I posted my message. Here are the problems: 1. I have difficulty to locate sites in different countries that the web forms have address. Google is not useful in this case. 2. web forms that have addresses and they are mostly eCommerce sites, and it seems they all use templates that come with the eCommerce system, and they are generic, more like tagsoup address and country field is placed at the last (exclude phone/fax fields). I checked over 30 sites from 10 countries, no exception. tee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] a tiny usability question on web form
I think this *is* a usability issue. How vital is it to have states available as a pull-down, rather than a simple text field? If the pull-down is non-negotiable, my suggestion would be to move the country choice to the top of the address section: I think that might be a little less jarring than placing it in the middle. Andrew http://www.andrewmaben.net and...@andrewmaben.com In a well designed user interface, the user should not need instructions. On Jan 5, 2010, at 10:52 AM, tee wrote: On Jan 5, 2010, at 7:19 AM, Elias Abunassar wrote: Conduct research. Sent from my iPhone Please do not assume people don't do homework before they post :-) I did conduct research before I posted my message. Here are the problems: 1. I have difficulty to locate sites in different countries that the web forms have address. Google is not useful in this case. 2. web forms that have addresses and they are mostly eCommerce sites, and it seems they all use templates that come with the eCommerce system, and they are generic, more like tagsoup address and country field is placed at the last (exclude phone/fax fields). I checked over 30 sites from 10 countries, no exception. tee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] a tiny usability question on web form
On Jan 5, 2010, at 7:19 AM, Elias Abunassar wrote: Conduct research. Sent from my iPhone Please do not assume people don't do homework before they post :-) Didn't assume anything. That was sent from my phone. Apologies. Try: http://www.lukew.com/resources/articles/WebForms_LukeW.pdf Not sure if it contains country specific information, hopefully it helps. Warm Regards. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] a tiny usability question on web form
I agree with Andrew. I'd find it far less confusing to enter my country first, rather than in the middle of the address. (Personally, I also find having state before city very strange.) Lesley Andrew Maben wrote: I think this *is* a usability issue. How vital is it to have states available as a pull-down, rather than a simple text field? If the pull-down is non-negotiable, my suggestion would be to move the country choice to the top of the address section: I think that might be a little less jarring than placing it in the middle. Andrew http://www.andrewmaben.net and...@andrewmaben.com mailto:and...@andrewmaben.com /In a well designed user interface, the user should not need instructions./ On Jan 5, 2010, at 10:52 AM, tee wrote: On Jan 5, 2010, at 7:19 AM, Elias Abunassar wrote: Conduct research. Sent from my iPhone Please do not assume people don't do homework before they post :-) I did conduct research before I posted my message. Here are the problems: 1. I have difficulty to locate sites in different countries that the web forms have address. Google is not useful in this case. 2. web forms that have addresses and they are mostly eCommerce sites, and it seems they all use templates that come with the eCommerce system, and they are generic, more like tagsoup address and country field is placed at the last (exclude phone/fax fields). I checked over 30 sites from 10 countries, no exception. tee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org mailto:memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] a tiny usability question on web form
In terms of coding such a form, are you populating the state field with any information that depends on knowing what country the user is in? (or any other location dependant information in other fields?). If the answer is yes, then I'd say it's quite important to have the country field *before* state for exactly the reasons your client states. And in my experience, this is also quite normal for commerce sites of international companies. Try buying something from Amazon or Apple for examples. If there is *no* dynamic or location dependant information in the other fields, then I'd say that it doesn't matter, in a technical sense, where you put the country field. It becomes a question of taste. Having said that, I think you will find it is quite common to put country before state (that sounds almost like a political statement ;) ). I would be cautious about looking at American sites for examples of this. Many American sites are strangely myopic about the rest of the world. Look at big/international company sites (even ones based in America. Bigger companies see the bigger picture more clearly). L. On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 3:43 AM, Lesley Lutomski ubu...@webaflame.co.ukwrote: I agree with Andrew. I'd find it far less confusing to enter my country first, rather than in the middle of the address. (Personally, I also find having state before city very strange.) Lesley Andrew Maben wrote: I think this *is* a usability issue. How vital is it to have states available as a pull-down, rather than a simple text field? If the pull-down is non-negotiable, my suggestion would be to move the country choice to the top of the address section: I think that might be a little less jarring than placing it in the middle. Andrew http://www.andrewmaben.net and...@andrewmaben.com mailto:and...@andrewmaben.com /In a well designed user interface, the user should not need instructions./ On Jan 5, 2010, at 10:52 AM, tee wrote: On Jan 5, 2010, at 7:19 AM, Elias Abunassar wrote: Conduct research. Sent from my iPhone Please do not assume people don't do homework before they post :-) I did conduct research before I posted my message. Here are the problems: 1. I have difficulty to locate sites in different countries that the web forms have address. Google is not useful in this case. 2. web forms that have addresses and they are mostly eCommerce sites, and it seems they all use templates that come with the eCommerce system, and they are generic, more like tagsoup address and country field is placed at the last (exclude phone/fax fields). I checked over 30 sites from 10 countries, no exception. tee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org mailto: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] a tiny usability question on web form
Try Luke Wroblewski http://visitmix.com/Articles/Web-Forms-for-People, Rosenfeld Mediahttp://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/webforms/and Boxes Arrows. Here's an example where Country comes before state: https://www.discovery.apply2jobs.com/index.cfm. Scroll down to Division then select Country. Hope this helps. On Jan 5, 2010, at 10:52 AM, tee wrote: Please do not assume people don't do homework before they post :-) I did conduct research before I posted my message. Here are the problems: 1. I have difficulty to locate sites in different countries that the web forms have address. Google is not useful in this case. 2. web forms that have addresses and they are mostly eCommerce sites, and it seems they all use templates that come with the eCommerce system, and they are generic, more like tagsoup address and country field is placed at the last (exclude phone/fax fields). I checked over 30 sites from 10 countries, no exception. tee *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***