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I still don't know why companies insist on only accepting a specific address format. As they said, every country has its own format: some with the house number
by F_r_k 9y ago
I still don't know why companies insist on only accepting a specific address format. As they said, every country has its own format: some with the house number in front of the street, other afterwards; some with a province, others not; etc.
A simple text box is so much simpler (enforce things like max width, max lines) and relies on the customer inputting their info corresponding to their local postal delivery. In an international context this is the right way.
Edit: the only thing that must be localized in the sender's locale is the recipient's country (Spain instead of España when sending from an English speaking country). Every thing else must be in the recipient's locale.
- NikolaeVarius 9y agoAddresses are hard. Debugging harder. Have you ever tried debugging issues regarding addresses in foreign countries? It sucks.
- praneshp 9y agoRelevant article: https://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-addresses/ https://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/falsehoods-programmers-believe-a...
- zachlatta 9y agoAt https://hackclub.com https://hackclub.com we send stickers to tons of students all around the world to help them promote their clubs. One of the big problems we run into is that people often don't know how to properly write their address. They'll forget to give us their zip code. Or their state. Sometimes even their city. Does the state go before or after the zip code? How do you write the apartment number? It only gets more complex when they're in another country and we're sending from the US. We probably run into these issues more often than most because we work with high schoolers that usually aren't regular users of physical mail, but we also run into these same problems more often than you'd expect when sending stickers to adults that donate. Having form fields to prompt for everything needed fixes this problem.
- BrandoElFollito 9y agoOne of the big problems we run into is that people often don't know how to properly write their address OK, I think there is a limit to babysitting. If someone is a developer /runs a coding club and does not know how to write his address we run into basic darwinian natural selection.
- zachlatta 9y agoHow often did you send letters in high school? I know that I thought zip code came before state until I started sending lots of mail.
- BrandoElFollito 9y agoEveryone knew his address when 10 yo. Not only you have to write it down a few times a year but it may have even been taught at school (France). One of the reasons may be that we use addresses a lot, in other countries it may be that they are used only with actual shipping (?).
- zachlatta 9y agoEveryone knows their street address, just not how to write their full address on an envelope for postal service.
- BrandoElFollito 9y agoI meant the full address, the way it should be written on a letter.
- cuchoi 9y agoI don't where are you sending them but in my country, even though we have a zip code, it is not relevant. If you include it, great. If you don't, your package will still arrive. For this reason, nobody knows their zip code.