Comments on: Luke: Remember those of us with no zip code! http://www.cognitivefriction.net/2007/11/24/luke-remember-those-of-us-with-no-zip-code/ User Experience Design Sat, 22 Nov 2008 00:11:06 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: John http://www.cognitivefriction.net/2007/11/24/luke-remember-those-of-us-with-no-zip-code/#comment-22837 John Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:12:19 +0000 http://www.cognitivefriction.net/2007/11/24/luke-remember-those-of-us-with-no-zip-code/#comment-22837 That one gets on my nerves too Tamlyn, and is another example of unnecessarily tight validation on the part of the developer. They just don't factor in the latency in the process of new housing developments making it into whatever database they have bought access to. With all of the building work in the UK and Ireland these last few years, this problem seems to be more common than it once was. For example, the Ordnance Survey here took something like 2 or 3 years to get my house onto street maps available at the local stationers. But it was on Google maps and Garmin GPS devices before then. Maybe we need to move away from the big Victorian bureaucracies currently charged with making this stuff work. That one gets on my nerves too Tamlyn, and is another example of unnecessarily tight validation on the part of the developer. They just don’t factor in the latency in the process of new housing developments making it into whatever database they have bought access to.

With all of the building work in the UK and Ireland these last few years, this problem seems to be more common than it once was. For example, the Ordnance Survey here took something like 2 or 3 years to get my house onto street maps available at the local stationers. But it was on Google maps and Garmin GPS devices before then. Maybe we need to move away from the big Victorian bureaucracies currently charged with making this stuff work.

]]> By: Tamlyn http://www.cognitivefriction.net/2007/11/24/luke-remember-those-of-us-with-no-zip-code/#comment-22836 Tamlyn Wed, 28 Nov 2007 11:22:53 +0000 http://www.cognitivefriction.net/2007/11/24/luke-remember-those-of-us-with-no-zip-code/#comment-22836 Even "the excellent British post code system" has problems. Many sites rely on a database provided by the Post Office to display a drop-down of possible addresses based on the postal code. This is fine unless the address you want is not in the database. Two out of the last four addresses I have lived at had this problem. Some sites let you over-ride the database suggested addresses but many do not, making it completely impossible to enter the correct address. When you design a system to be 'intelligent' you have to make sure that it won't make mistakes. Otherwise it just ends up looking 'stupid'. Even “the excellent British post code system” has problems. Many sites rely on a database provided by the Post Office to display a drop-down of possible addresses based on the postal code. This is fine unless the address you want is not in the database. Two out of the last four addresses I have lived at had this problem. Some sites let you over-ride the database suggested addresses but many do not, making it completely impossible to enter the correct address.

When you design a system to be ‘intelligent’ you have to make sure that it won’t make mistakes. Otherwise it just ends up looking ’stupid’.

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