[thelist] fun with form entries

[M. Seyon]

Message from Steve Lewis (3/1/2005 12:24 AM)
>the book is being returned to the shipper, having been flagged as 
>undeliverable.
>
>It turns out that the Suite number for the address at work never made it 
>into the mailing address in the bookstore's database.  A little more 
>sleuthing, and I discover that the address entry form has a max limit on 
>the field which is shorter than the address I was shipping to, and which 
>is shorter than any other address fields I have seen.

I think there are lots of web developers out there who weren't hired on the 
basis of their ability to think logically or apply judicious amounts of 
common sense.

One very very well-known lingerie company, with a globally recogniseable 
brand name, has a similar problem with their online store.


>A phone call gets me in touch with the web master and I suggest having the 
>field auto-advance to the second address line when the first line is 
>full.  He likes the idea and told me to feel free to offer him an example 
>of what I am thinking.

I personally think the absolute best way to allow someone to enter their 
shipping address is a freeform textarea.

<soapbox>
There are 6 billion people in the world. Average out a family size of 6 and 
you've got 1 billion possible addresses.

Apparently in some of the smaller Caribbean countries you can basically 
send mail to
[Person's Name]
[Island]

I'm just ranting, but really the more you try to apply strict rules to this 
sort of data entry the more likely you are to bollocks it up for somebody.

Not everywhere has States. Or Provinces, Regions, Territories, etc. Many, 
MANY places do not have postal codes. Lots of places with postal codes 
don't use only numeric characters in their postal code.

This also applies to phone numbers.

Fancy tricks have their place. The order form of a website is not one of 
those places.

</soapbox>

regards.
-marc

--
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