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Asking for city, state and zip code is my favorite on the list. Plus the country should be asked for first then if US only get the street and zip code. There w

by yogo 13y ago

Asking for city, state and zip code is my favorite on the list. Plus the country should be asked for first then if US only get the street and zip code. There was a link on HN sometime ago that showed that people trusted the form/page more when complete address information was requested (I believe the conclusion was that people were used to doing it that way) so maybe there is a downside to the shorter version.

pbreit 13y ago
I always find it jarring when a site does this inference since it's so uncommon and really doesn't save much time or mental capacity.
- yogo 13y ago
  Yep it is one of those things that is deeply ingrained. It doesn't save much time but I believe if you don't need to ask for it, then don't. Asking for it only increases the chance of users entering something incorrectly.
- superasn 13y ago
  As a webmaster you should also know your audience too. It may be cool for you to do this if your target traffic is hacker news, but for non tech savvy people it will only confuse them more. Some people are also mistrusting of tech magic as well. I say this because one of our site deals with eBay sellers and I remember this duffer person complain that we were somehow hacking his ebay account getting information he never gave us (the title, description of his auctions when all we knew was his id)
apendleton 13y ago
Funny. This is the one to which I had the most negative response. Zipcodes are terrible for inferring anything geographically interesting. A single zipcode is just a collection of USPS postal routes; nothing more, nothing less. They don't have to be contained within a single city, or even a single state, nor do they have to be contiguous, and they can overlap with one another. New ones are also added all the time, and no publicly available databases of them handle any of these problems well. Most applications that try to use them for anything end up running across edge cases that show users incorrect data, often without ever realizing it. It's especially unfortunate because so many startup-y people live in urban areas where zipcodes cover small, regular geographic areas, and have no idea they're potentially creating terrible user experiences for people who live elsewhere. For a particular case study of sorts, see: http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/01/19/dont-use-zipcodes/ http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/01/19/dont-use-zipco...
- Domenic_S 13y ago
  ZIPs are almost always fine at a state granularity, and pretty good for cities. If the form is street/city/state/zip, you can autofill State correctly from ZIP 99.9% of the time.
  - apendleton 13y ago
    Do you have data supporting the 99.9%? I suspect that's high; there are buildings within five blocks of where I'm sitting that have a zipcode that crosses a state line, and I don't think it's the only state-crossing zip in my area (Washington, DC, for what it's worth). In any event, even if it's accurate, it doesn't take that much traffic for a .1% error rate to start to add up to non-trivial number of users, especially because that .1% is going to have a noticeably-jarring experience, as opposed to the alternative (collecting all fields) which everyone is already completely accustomed to.
    - Domenic_S 13y ago
      Well, this list shows 293 ZIPs that cross state lines [0], this FAQ says there are ~43,000 ZIPs in use [1] so that puts it closer to 99.3%. But think about it, if you're taking an address to ship something, getting the ZIP right is what matters. If your package has 45201 on it, it doesn't matter if it says Cincinnati, OH or Cincinnati, KY. [0] http://web.archive.org/web/20110112211559/http://maps.huge.info/zips_in_multiple_states.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20110112211559/http://maps.huge.i... [1] http://www.carrierroutes.com/ZIPCodes.html http://www.carrierroutes.com/ZIPCodes.html
      - apendleton 13y ago
        But if you're collecting a billing address (probably more common, since many places bill but don't ship, e.g., for digital goods, but not that many ship without billing), and are trying to expedite filling out the form by guessing the city and state from the zip, I doubt the payment processing would succeed if you got the city or state wrong. All depends on the situation, I guess.
rhplus 13y ago
The UK postcode system is accurate enough that a lot of online retailers will ask you first for the postcode (5 - 7 character) and then they'll offer the short selection list of valid addresses (mostly just house numbers) for that code. It's great.

by yogo 13y ago

pbreit 13y ago

I always find it jarring when a site does this inference since it's so uncommon and really doesn't save much time or mental capacity.

yogo 13y ago
Yep it is one of those things that is deeply ingrained. It doesn't save much time but I believe if you don't need to ask for it, then don't. Asking for it only increases the chance of users entering something incorrectly.
superasn 13y ago
As a webmaster you should also know your audience too. It may be cool for you to do this if your target traffic is hacker news, but for non tech savvy people it will only confuse them more. Some people are also mistrusting of tech magic as well. I say this because one of our site deals with eBay sellers and I remember this duffer person complain that we were somehow hacking his ebay account getting information he never gave us (the title, description of his auctions when all we knew was his id)

apendleton 13y ago

Funny. This is the one to which I had the most negative response. Zipcodes are terrible for inferring anything geographically interesting. A single zipcode is just a collection of USPS postal routes; nothing more, nothing less. They don't have to be contained within a single city, or even a single state, nor do they have to be contiguous, and they can overlap with one another. New ones are also added all the time, and no publicly available databases of them handle any of these problems well. Most applications that try to use them for anything end up running across edge cases that show users incorrect data, often without ever realizing it. It's especially unfortunate because so many startup-y people live in urban areas where zipcodes cover small, regular geographic areas, and have no idea they're potentially creating terrible user experiences for people who live elsewhere. For a particular case study of sorts, see: http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/01/19/dont-use-zipcodes/ http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/01/19/dont-use-zipco...

Domenic_S 13y ago
ZIPs are almost always fine at a state granularity, and pretty good for cities. If the form is street/city/state/zip, you can autofill State correctly from ZIP 99.9% of the time.
- apendleton 13y ago
  Do you have data supporting the 99.9%? I suspect that's high; there are buildings within five blocks of where I'm sitting that have a zipcode that crosses a state line, and I don't think it's the only state-crossing zip in my area (Washington, DC, for what it's worth). In any event, even if it's accurate, it doesn't take that much traffic for a .1% error rate to start to add up to non-trivial number of users, especially because that .1% is going to have a noticeably-jarring experience, as opposed to the alternative (collecting all fields) which everyone is already completely accustomed to.
  - Domenic_S 13y ago
    Well, this list shows 293 ZIPs that cross state lines [0], this FAQ says there are ~43,000 ZIPs in use [1] so that puts it closer to 99.3%. But think about it, if you're taking an address to ship something, getting the ZIP right is what matters. If your package has 45201 on it, it doesn't matter if it says Cincinnati, OH or Cincinnati, KY. [0] http://web.archive.org/web/20110112211559/http://maps.huge.info/zips_in_multiple_states.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20110112211559/http://maps.huge.i... [1] http://www.carrierroutes.com/ZIPCodes.html http://www.carrierroutes.com/ZIPCodes.html
    - apendleton 13y ago
      But if you're collecting a billing address (probably more common, since many places bill but don't ship, e.g., for digital goods, but not that many ship without billing), and are trying to expedite filling out the form by guessing the city and state from the zip, I doubt the payment processing would succeed if you got the city or state wrong. All depends on the situation, I guess.

rhplus 13y ago

The UK postcode system is accurate enough that a lot of online retailers will ask you first for the postcode (5 - 7 character) and then they'll offer the short selection list of valid addresses (mostly just house numbers) for that code. It's great.