Re: [WSG] a tiny usability question on web form

2010-01-08 Thread Paul Novitski

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

2010-01-07 Thread Peter Hislop
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

2010-01-07 Thread tee


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

2010-01-06 Thread tee

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

2010-01-06 Thread tee


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

2010-01-05 Thread tee
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

2010-01-05 Thread Elias Abunassar

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

2010-01-05 Thread tee




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

2010-01-05 Thread Andrew Maben

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

2010-01-05 Thread Elias Abunassar
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

2010-01-05 Thread Lesley Lutomski
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

2010-01-05 Thread nedlud
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

2010-01-05 Thread Elias Abunassar
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
***