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Redesigning the country selector

baymard.com

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Re: Redesigning the country selector

#11

Post by mmastrac »

While this has a nice UI, it suffers from a ranking system that fails to weight prefixes correctly.

For those of us in Canada, typing "ca" should probably rank countries that start with the "ca" prefix first, followed by countries that have a word that starts with "ca", finally followed by countries that just happen to contain "ca".

I don't see much use in showing "United States" as the first match for a user who has typed "c" and "a".

The same problem exists for the prefix: "uni". The list in that case is:

  United States
  United Kingdom
  Réunion
  Tanzania, United Republic of
  Tunisia
  United Arab Emirates
  United States Minor Outlying Islands

Re: Redesigning the country selector

#12

Post by URSpider94 »

jfruh wrote: post #6

On a similar note, I've always found it kind of amusing/frustrating that forms in the US make you fill out city, state, and zip code, when in fact the zip code indicates a specific city and state. I realize that's a huge database of geolocation data to keep as part of the program, but I wonder if there could be some kind of lookup that goes on behind the scenes and fills in the city and state if the response is quick…

The database is not huge at all, fewer than 10k entries, each of which is a key-value pair. It's bigger than I'd want to include in a client-side Javascript file, but it's certainly small enough to keep on your server.

The only problem with this is that, while all ZIP codes have canonical names, some also have additional allowed names that users may identify closely with. So, if you auto-complete the canonical name, the user may think that you've made a mistake.

Re: Redesigning the country selector

#14

Post by iloveponies »

jgrahamc wrote: post #8
jfruh wrote: post #6

On a similar note, I've always found it kind of amusing/frustrating that forms in the US make you fill out city, state, and zip code, when in fact the zip code indicates a specific city and state. I realize that's a huge database of geolocation data to keep as part of the program, but I wonder if there could be some kind of lookup that goes on behind the scenes and fills in the city and state if the response is quick…

In the UK it's quite common for forms to ask you to type in your postcode and they then ask you to select your address. Because the postcode is very dense (your house number/postcode is unique), this makes address entry very easy.

Until you live at an address not in most people's postcode database. If you're lucky, you get to enter your address in manually. If you're unlucky, you're up for a phone call or total rejection - a few times I've had to collect parcels from neighbours.

Re: Redesigning the country selector

#16

Post by mynegation »

My main complaint about old country pickers and this one is non-prioritization of countries in the list. Yes, I understand that this may be a sensitive issue, but how much likely your customer is going to be from Canada than from Cameroon. Or if I start typing 'CA' in this selector, I get American Samoa and Antarctica before Canada! Let alone my old acquaintances Cambodia and Cameroon.

Same for Russia - you get Aruba, Nauru and Burundi higher in the list.

So here is my non-PC suggestion: rate countries by population or GDP per capita, so countries where your customers are more likely to be from will be closer to the top and thus easily accessible with fewer keystrokes.

Re: Redesigning the country selector

#18

Post by dmethvin »

jfruh wrote: post #6

On a similar note, I've always found it kind of amusing/frustrating that forms in the US make you fill out city, state, and zip code, when in fact the zip code indicates a specific city and state. I realize that's a huge database of geolocation data to keep as part of the program, but I wonder if there could be some kind of lookup that goes on behind the scenes and fills in the city and state if the response is quick…

Zip codes can and do cross both state and city boundaries in some cases. That's not true of zip+4 but most people don't know their extra 4 digits.

Then there is the expected rhythm of filling in the form as city,state,zip so putting zip first throws people off. I did a form once where we put the country above city/state/zip so we could do the wording for those more appropriately (e.g., switch to "postal code") and even that was annoying to many testers.

Re: Redesigning the country selector

#19

Post by rhplus »

jfruh wrote: post #6

On a similar note, I've always found it kind of amusing/frustrating that forms in the US make you fill out city, state, and zip code, when in fact the zip code indicates a specific city and state. I realize that's a huge database of geolocation data to keep as part of the program, but I wonder if there could be some kind of lookup that goes on behind the scenes and fills in the city and state if the response is quick…

The mapping zip codes to city is not strictly 1:1. I don't have a better source for this, but the description in Wikipedia states:

"The Postal Service designates one _default_ place name for each ZIP code... Additional place names may be recognized as _acceptable_ for a certain ZIP code."

This means that someone may continue to write their address as Smalltown, EG, 12345, when technically it is Bigtown, EG, 12345. Of course, this would not be the case with zip+4, which like the UK postal code system, identifies a much smaller grouping of addresses.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_code#ZIP_codes_and_previous...

Re: Redesigning the country selector

#20

Post by steadicat »

mmastrac wrote: post #11

While this has a nice UI, it suffers from a ranking system that fails to weight prefixes correctly. For those of us in Canada, typing "ca" should probably rank countries that start with the "ca" prefix first, followed by countries that have a word that starts with "ca", finally followed by countries that just happen to contain "ca". I don't see much use in showing "United States" as the first match for a user who has…

I typed 'ita' and the first option was 'United Kingdom'.
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