[thelist] Country/State/Province choices on registration form

Kasimir K evolt at kasimir-k.fi
Fri May 13 15:27:44 CDT 2005


Carl Edwards scribeva in 2005-05-13 17:08:
> Could I get opinions, suggestions, examples of well done
> registration forms and how the user selects their location?

Here's some opinions and suggestions.

> In particular I would like to avoid the Javascript interdependent
> select list thing, try to avoid US bias, and allow us to reuse the
> locations in our DB to generate sales lead e-mails and build our
> contact us pages.
> 
> Currently we have the "State" select list change based on the Country
> you choose but I would like to eliminate the Javascript requirement
> and users have been known to use select lists in the wrong order :-)
> 
> I am also trying to avoid putting the whole world in one select list.
> 
> If I did not have to take automatic action on each registration I
> would just put some input fields!

I think using both text input fields and javascript select thing would 
be the ticket. Initially there's only text inputs, but if the user has 
javascript, then they are changed to selects.

If the user hasn't javascript, then selects would have to have the whole 
world in them. It's better to take text input and then check them on the 
server, maybe suggesting similar sounding options if no match is found.

For javascript users easiest might be to have first only a country 
select, then if your db has regions/states for the selected country, a 
select for those is appended in the form, and finally a city select (for 
those countries you have cities). This way the user couldn't use the 
selects in wrong order. And if you use XMLHttpRequest you don't have to 
download all regions of the world (let alone cities), just the selected 
ones.

How would that sound?

.k


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