I have said this before, and I will say it again

[conuly]

Once, many years ago now, I filled in a form that called for my zip code first and then filled out the city and state based on that.

And ever since then I've actively resented having to find my state on a drop down menu, like, even more than I already did. Inevitably, if I try typing I go "NY" to find out that all states are done in full, or else I go "NE" to find out that they're all abbreviated.

Anyway, my point is obvious. If you have any pull at all, ever, encourage whoever makes these forms wherever they make them to populate the state and city from the zip code. It is vastly superior, and I hope that form maker got a bonus for that stroke of brilliance.

Comments

[spiffikins]

Mostly we use it for address validation - verifying that in fact 123 First Street in Sometown, Somestate is a Real Address and that the user didn't mistype something - mostly only for customers who are having to snail mail something to the person filling in the form.

It is interesting though - that in 20+ years of building applications for customers - this really hasn't come up - only one customer was interested in paying for a subscription to the address validation service!

And it's not even *that* expensive!

[conuly]

Maybe not enough people making forms know about this, because omg, I want everybody to know about this.