Internationalization Part 5 – Addresses
Posted in May 11th, 2009 by Cassius FigueiredoI guess the last post was rather tedious, with all that talk on hexadecimal system. This post will be lighter, I promise!
One of the least standardized items to be carefully monitored during the internationalization process is the address format. The input fields and routines that process information related to addresses must be able to grasp and manipulate the most varied address formats.
One of the most common errors is to force the user to enter information in a field called “State” (or “Province,” for Canada). While this information makes sense to people living in the U.S. or Canadian, it may create confusion for users in other regions of the globe that cannot complete the “State” field as it does not exist in their addresses.
You should also be flexible when validating input date. For instance, it is recommended to avoid validating zip code fields as they vary widely from country to country and may even contain letters and not only numbers.
Therefore, you should be very careful when including fields for entering address information in a Web form, for example. There are so many formats of addresses around the world that the using the most flexible data entry form you can think of is your best choice. This will prevent your users from spending their precious time trying to understand how to enter their contact information. They might even give up and do something more useful.
In the next post we will talk about money. Ding, ding, jackpot!
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