3 ms·

I gave it a shot of my own. I didn't do all the permutations, and surely left out big swaths that I've never even thought of, but it's a start... http://hicks-

by tghw 17y ago

I gave it a shot of my own. I didn't do all the permutations, and surely left out big swaths that I've never even thought of, but it's a start... http://hicks-wright.net/blog/stupid-american-website-owners/ http://hicks-wright.net/blog/stupid-american-website-owners/

jasonlotito 17y ago
I wrote about Credit Card forms a while back as well. http://www.jasonlotito.com/programming/what-i-know-about-designing-credit-card-forms/ http://www.jasonlotito.com/programming/what-i-know-about-des... Anyways, you mention in your post: "Making something a simple form that is fully internationalized and has useful validation is no where near as easy as they would like us to believe." It's not easy, but it's not as time consuming and as difficult as you think it is. Getting the phone numbers right doesn't take years. A week is all you need from design to testing, and you are done. Postal Codes are easy as well, considering their are numerous services that allow you to verify the Postal Code to the address. However, even taking something as simple as the common case, a user from the US entering a 6 digit code has probably made an error, and that solves a common problem. House numbers and other addresses never presented a significant problem. I've seen more problems with not accepting different encodings then with the actual input. And why is this important, even if you just want to serve an American audience? Because not every American lives in the US. Consider just the Armed Services, stationed all over the world. No. If you don't want to do it, that's fine. But don't complain that it's too much work or not worth it.
- tghw 17y ago
  Of course I exaggerate in the post, you're right that it'll probably take just a week to get coded up. (Which means three weeks, the way development often goes.) The question is whether or not that time is well spent, or if I would be better off using that time to improve whatever product/service the form is attached to. Especially when you're on a lean (i.e. startup) budget, the decision becomes pretty clear.
  - jasonlotito 17y ago
    You are throwing a lot of ifs. If you are providing a service that needs to be programmed. If you are short on funds. If you are only focusing on the US. The problem isn't that. The problem is this: When you are providing a service that relies on processing international orders... When you are no longer a startup and earning money... When you want to accept orders from the international community... If you don't want to support the international market, don't. But if you do, do it right. I've seen it happen: "Launching in Canada!" and they still have a restriction of 5 characters for their Zip Code, or require all numbers. It's silly. That's what the article is referring to. Wanting to accept international customers but doing it poorly. You'd be better off not offering the service and doing it right then offering it up poorly.
Timmy_C 17y ago
This post made me laugh. And I think it is exactly at what I trying to get at when I said that internationalization isn't easy. Nice!

by tghw 17y ago

jasonlotito 17y ago

I wrote about Credit Card forms a while back as well. http://www.jasonlotito.com/programming/what-i-know-about-designing-credit-card-forms/ http://www.jasonlotito.com/programming/what-i-know-about-des... Anyways, you mention in your post: "Making something a simple form that is fully internationalized and has useful validation is no where near as easy as they would like us to believe." It's not easy, but it's not as time consuming and as difficult as you think it is. Getting the phone numbers right doesn't take years. A week is all you need from design to testing, and you are done. Postal Codes are easy as well, considering their are numerous services that allow you to verify the Postal Code to the address. However, even taking something as simple as the common case, a user from the US entering a 6 digit code has probably made an error, and that solves a common problem. House numbers and other addresses never presented a significant problem. I've seen more problems with not accepting different encodings then with the actual input. And why is this important, even if you just want to serve an American audience? Because not every American lives in the US. Consider just the Armed Services, stationed all over the world. No. If you don't want to do it, that's fine. But don't complain that it's too much work or not worth it.

tghw 17y ago
Of course I exaggerate in the post, you're right that it'll probably take just a week to get coded up. (Which means three weeks, the way development often goes.) The question is whether or not that time is well spent, or if I would be better off using that time to improve whatever product/service the form is attached to. Especially when you're on a lean (i.e. startup) budget, the decision becomes pretty clear.
- jasonlotito 17y ago
  You are throwing a lot of ifs. If you are providing a service that needs to be programmed. If you are short on funds. If you are only focusing on the US. The problem isn't that. The problem is this: When you are providing a service that relies on processing international orders... When you are no longer a startup and earning money... When you want to accept orders from the international community... If you don't want to support the international market, don't. But if you do, do it right. I've seen it happen: "Launching in Canada!" and they still have a restriction of 5 characters for their Zip Code, or require all numbers. It's silly. That's what the article is referring to. Wanting to accept international customers but doing it poorly. You'd be better off not offering the service and doing it right then offering it up poorly.

Timmy_C 17y ago

This post made me laugh. And I think it is exactly at what I trying to get at when I said that internationalization isn't easy. Nice!