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I digitalized Berlin's registration form

nicolasbouliane.com

21–30 of 320 posts

Re: I digitalized Berlin's registration form

#21
post #10

Kudos on the nice UX for dropdown with countries. I wish more websites do it. Usually, it's "United States" at the very top, and 194 other countries in a loooooong list.

I use navigator.languages to guess the user's possible countries. It's not perfect, but the cost of guessing wrong is low. I've used the same technique to show currency conversion tooltips in the content.

Re: I digitalized Berlin's registration form

#22
post #14
post #10

Kudos on the nice UX for dropdown with countries. I wish more websites do it. Usually, it's "United States" at the very top, and 194 other countries in a loooooong list.

That's... exactly what this is as well? Are you getting a different UI that I'm not?

If you have different browser language settings, then yes, you are getting a different UI.

Re: I digitalized Berlin's registration form

#23
> German apartments don’t have apartment numbers. If your name is not on your mailbox, postal workers can’t deliver your mail.

This can also cause delivery failures the other way around - a friend in Germany once sent me a package but didn't bother writing the apartment number on it because she assumed the postman would use my name to find the right box. Instead it got sent right back to Germany. (Austrian bureaucracy is just as unforgiving as German, they just have different rules to follow...)

Re: I digitalized Berlin's registration form

#25
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The German authorities have no incitive to digitize and fix the broken bureaucracy because for one, in their mind there's nothing wrong with it because Germany is Europe's wealthiest country so it can never be wrong, and secondly, digitizing bureaucracy means increased efficiency which means less public servant jobs and they don't want that. What they want is more bureaucracy and more cushy public servant jobs pushin…

I'm sorry, but that's just complete nonsense. > in their mind there's nothing wrong with it because Germany is Europe's wealthiest country so it can never be wrong There's literally not a single political party that doesn't admit that Germany is being too slow here or that doesn't admit that it's embarassing. On a national and on a local level. You can Google that if you don't believe me. > digitizing bureaucracy mea…

>Germany just upgraded too early, then let everything run and stopped upgrading because the current system works

Upgraded too early to what? Letters and fax machines?

Re: I digitalized Berlin's registration form

#26
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The German authorities have no incitive to digitize and fix the broken bureaucracy because for one, in their mind there's nothing wrong with it because Germany is Europe's wealthiest country so it can never be wrong, and secondly, digitizing bureaucracy means increased efficiency which means less public servant jobs and they don't want that. What they want is more bureaucracy and more cushy public servant jobs pushin…

I'm sorry, but that's just complete nonsense. > in their mind there's nothing wrong with it because Germany is Europe's wealthiest country so it can never be wrong There's literally not a single political party that doesn't admit that Germany is being too slow here or that doesn't admit that it's embarassing. On a national and on a local level. You can Google that if you don't believe me. > digitizing bureaucracy mea…

Completely agree with you. I think it's just a problem of incentives for the people who make this decisions and work at these positions. "Verbeamtung" (tenure) also doesn't help.

Re: I digitalized Berlin's registration form

#27
post #10

Kudos on the nice UX for dropdown with countries. I wish more websites do it. Usually, it's "United States" at the very top, and 194 other countries in a loooooong list.

Oddly enough it doesn't list countries where most people are likely to come from right at the top. That makes it ill designed still.

The OP wrote this is based on "navigator.languages" feature in the visitor's browser. So if your preferred language is set to e.g. French, then you shall see France at the top of dropdown.

Re: I digitalized Berlin's registration form

#28
Nit: I’d probably avoid saying “you’re done” when nothing was done, the user still needs to deliver it themselves. Saying “done” makes it look like it took care of it all, to a distracted person.

I’d say the opposite: “Warning, you’re not done!”

Re: I digitalized Berlin's registration form

#29
post #22
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's... exactly what this is as well? Are you getting a different UI that I'm not?

If you have different browser language settings, then yes, you are getting a different UI.

I'm from UK, and I got "United Kingdom, United States, Germany" as three first countries.

Re: I digitalized Berlin's registration form

#30

> German apartments don’t have apartment numbers. If your name is not on your mailbox, postal workers can’t deliver your mail. This can also cause delivery failures the other way around - a friend in Germany once sent me a package but didn't bother writing the apartment number on it because she assumed the postman would use my name to find the right box. Instead it got sent right back to Germany. (Austrian bureaucrac…

Adding small texts about the importance of the input you provide is missing in so many forms. OP handled it perfect here.
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