Why do we not use ZIP+4 add-on codes anymore? Some sites won't even accept them. If you put that in first, you've narrowed it down to one street at worst, in most cases.
Put the zip code first
151–160 of 330 posts
Re: Put the zip code first
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A city can also exist in multiple zip codes. And there can be multiple cities with the same name in the same state. These are reasons you cannot deduce the Zip from the city, not the opposite. A ZIP+4 actually encodes all other information for a US address.
ZIP+4? I think that's literally enough digits to give every house in the US (about 150,000,000 apparently) its own identifier.
Only if there's never more than 10,000 addresses in a single zip code, which means that if you enforce that, you can force a zip code to appear by building enough house
Re: Put the zip code first
#153Falsehoods US programmers believe about addresses: there are no other countries than the US of A, and if there are, they don’t really matter. This person bought a whole domain for something that doesn’t work for 90% of the world, claiming it does, never even testing their assumption. Great job!
I don't disagree with you generally but does he really claim it does? The entire page only mentions US, near as I can tell.
> From those 5 characters you can determine the city, the state, and the country
And the country field is completely useless as you can’t change from USA.
Re: Put the zip code first
#154Le sigh. It has now a disclaimer at the top. “Hello from across the pond (or whichever body of water separates us). This is a US ZIP code website. We are aware that other countries exist.” This guy just keeps digging himself into a hole of ignorance - is he aware of Mexico? Canada?
There's a few messages it can show: const msgs = [ `Yes, we know ${country} exists. We're very proud of you. This site is about US address forms — the ones that make Americans scroll past Turkmenistan 200 times a year. You have your own postal code problems. We believe in you.`, `We see you're visiting from ${country}. Welcome. We regret to inform you that this rant is specifically about American address forms, which…
Yeah, that was added after the onslaught. I’m in Canada and got the “across the pond” one. Lol.
Re: Put the zip code first
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did read it.
Great. Pretty sure jen20 did too; they are replying to a comment pointing out the article is wrong and suggesting a compromise between the web default "enter all your address, then the zipcode" and the article's "you don't ever need to touch the country, state, or city fields" that is closer to working beyond the US. In that context, I find it strange and rude that you're suggesting they didn't read the article.
You also suggested I hadn’t read it. “I won't violate the site guidelines by suggesting you didn't read it”. Only you did (saying you won’t say something and then saying it doesn’t really absolve you).
I find you rude so I won’t reply to you anymore.
Re: Put the zip code first
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd like any person or system asking for my information one field at a time to minimize my time and effort to give it to them.
When they make erroneous assumptions, which they often do, they steal more of your time and effort than it would take without "assistance".
I bet a large majority of Americans have their city and state uniquely identified by their zip code
if it's not unique, a trivial fallback would be to not populate anything, and that's where we are today
Re: Put the zip code first
#157US-centric. I typed a Mexico postal code (it’s five digits) and got routed to somewhere in Maine. So - yeah the whole “I can tell you’re in the US just by the zip code” premise is entirely flawed.
The UI pattern is still stupid. You should be able to quickly enter forms like this on a keyboard. When I look for a part for my car, I pick “Honda”, “Model Year”, “model”, “trim”. With address forms, if I type “U” in a keyboard aware field, it defaults to “US Minor Outlying Islands”. Places that try to accommodate will put the US and Canada first. If you asked country, first, you could utilize the postcode method. S…
Being from the England is even worse, 'Country' could be any of the following:
United Kingdom
Great Britain
Britain
England
Re: Put the zip code first
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t understand either of these arguments. They both appear to reinforce the point made in the article. At worst a zip code contains multiple cities? Voila the city box becomes a dropdown. It’s 2025. JavaScript.
I get the vibe that it's more like there's unexpected complexity and it's difficult to be confident you know how zipcodes work with enough detail to make the feature work. And that is just one example of possible complexity. Do zipcodes change for example? Can your drop-down quickly go out-of-date? You'd need a way to manually enter a city so people are able to tell the system an address. Do you want to bother making…
> Is this USA only? There are postal codes/zipcode-equivalents in other countries.
This is where the real problems start - postcodes exist the world over.
Speaking as someone that has dealt with countries that have postcodes, but no states, so it's just Street Address (if applicable) | City (if applicable) | Country | Postcode
Inputting a "zip code" first would result in every country being in the drop down.
In Australia, addresses too are wild, they should be considered "free form"
https://blog.melissa.com/en-au/global-intelligence/australia...
Gives this as an example address The Smith Family
'Willow Creek' Station
via Winton
QLD 4730
Re: Put the zip code first
#159> From those 5 characters you can determine the city, the state, and the country False. Many zip codes include more than one city, and some even cross multiple states. And you can't always tell the difference between codes from different countries. Now you're not just instantly filling the rest of the form, you're implementing fancy multi-country filtering logic, editable drop downs, etc. Given the obvious incompeten…
This 1000 times. I’ve tried implementing what OP has mentioned, and quickly learned it isn’t possible. A city can also exist in multiple zip codes. And there can be multiple cities with the same name in the same state. So, to be safe, you have to enter city, state, and zip.
I've implemented it, too, and didn't run into any problems. User inputs the zip code, if there's multiple city matches, they select the correct one from the drop-down (or you auto-complete the city name after they type the first 4 letters).
The fact that "A city can also exist in multiple zip codes. And there can be multiple cities with the same name in the same state" is a good point IN FAVOR of asking for the zip code first (NOT to avoid it) because you certainly can't do it the other way round.
And if you just leave it to the user to free-type all that info in, you have to verify it after... Users are going to make typos, and the USPS will kick your butt if you don't correct it (and credit card payments won't go through, either). So it may be less work for web-form creators, but pushing the verification down stream just makes it all worse for the company using it.
Re: Put the zip code first
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody knows their +4 code. You cannot ask for information 90%+ of people won't have.
If asking for the zip first was more common then we quickly learn those four extra digits because the auto fill benefits would be immediately obvious
Why?
I have a 4 digit postcode, I have to look it up every time I have to fill in an address form for delivery.
I've had people screw 1 digit up in that postcode and their items (a laptop in one case) went to the completely wrong city.
A code sounds foolproof, until you realise most people don't engage with them for most of their lives - you don't tell the uber driver the zip/post code you are waiting in, and travelling to, nobody does.
edit: just to add - Magic numbers are bad. Software engineers know that a number that's undocumented in code is unmaintainable, a zip code is worse.