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Previous: Time Warner Cable registration | Main | Next: Safeco Field garage sign
September 19, 2005 12:29 AM
Broken: USPS Zip Code finder
Matt Frampton writes:
The good folks at the US Post Office have what must be one of the most useful services on the Web: the ZIP Code Lookup page, which allows you to quickly look up Zip Codes (tm) by putting in an address and city name.
Problems:
1. This page, whose entire purpose is to look up a Zip Code, itself has a Zip Code entry field on it.
2. The small print under the Zip Code field: "Required when City/State are not provided." Huh? The site also allows you to enter a Zip and find a city, but nothing on this page makes that clear. If you do try to enter a Zip and not an address you get an error message.
2a. Looking more closely, I saw the "Lookup a Zip Code" text - the verb "look up" is two words, by the way - which is next to a drop box that includes the option, "Find City By Zip Code." This is circular logic at its absolute finest. Choosing that option takes you to a second page where the only field available is for a Zip code, meaning that field serves no apparent purpose on the first page.
Seeing as this is probably one of the most trafficked pages on the Web, you'd think maybe they could spend a couple hundred dollars to hire a copy editor and spend an hour doing a little usability testing. It's not asking much.
This confused me for about two seconds the first time I used it. Then, I shrugged my shoulders and entered the information I had, and got the zip.
I never really had much of a problem with it. Minor usability issue, not major breakage.
P.S., the photo is old, the page has been updated. It doesn;t address this specific complaint, but it is less confusingly laid out.
I get a "Warning- you are using Opera Version 8.02. Recommend browser are...
(Usual suspects are listed, last entry is:)
-Opera Version 5 or better
"Lookup" is the noun and adjective form. "Look up" is the verb form. In the phrase "Zip code lookup" they are correct. In the sentence "Lookup a zip code" they are wrong.
I've noticed this same thing before as well. And while it's not so bad as I can never figure out how to get done what I need to get done, it's rare that I get this page to work right the first time. And I've never been able to figure out why there's a zip code field on a page to determine an address' zip code. I suppose it's if you have 5 digits of the 9, but last I checked, you really only need 5 for the mail to get there anyway.
I work in the shipping department at my job. This site works 90% of the time when order entry screws up, the other 10% google works just as well. Google also works well the occasional international package.
I was reading this, and i'm like what-a-moron that zip code entry is for looking stuff up but then i read the entire thing and this is pretty broken.
----
Mr. Engelhart- Can you not type in your choice at the top of the pull-down, so that it narrows down the choices like the Word font menu?
Let's not forget that it's not always correct with the info anyway. It can't find an address for one of my satellite offices. I've been there, I know it exists and I know they receive mail. But apparently they're really a post-office free zone. Wheeeee...
Not broken (except for occasionally not finding an address). The USPS site is for more than just Joe User. The vast majority of mail comes from companies, not individuals.
I work for a payroll company that uses precise zip information to get packages to clients. We use this site often. There's more than just the zip+4. Say I'm looking for 123 main st #3a, Anytown, CA 95612. I can enter that info into the USPS site an find out the zip+4 and the delivery point. If 3a was a basement apartment or a converted garage in the back, the delivery point code would tell the postman how to find it.
They probably had it really cool to begin with, but then kept getting complaints from clueless users that there was no Zip Code field. Since the customer is "always right", they probably added it just to make the complaints stop. After all, smart people don't really complain about stuff, they generally figure out a way to get what they want from the service.
"It's definitely not the friendliest thing on the Web--for my part, I think its greatest sin is making users pick the state from a huge list instead of allowing them to type in a two-letter abbreviation. However, the ZIP code field makes sense if you're using it to get the nine-digit ZIP code when you already have the five-digit code. It's a lot easier to type "94102" than it is to type "San Francisco" and to pick California from a list of over fifty items."
I use osx and safari, so I don't know if this carries over to your operating system/browser combo, buuuut...
in the pull down menu with all the states, you can just type the first couple letters and it will select the appropriate choice for you. This works even better if you have a list of state abbreviations, for example: I live in california, so I would click the pull-down and type ca and it would select california. Hit enter to lock in that option.
Also, yes, I've used this form to get a zip+4 when i have a zip and street adress. Nothing is more annoying than filling out all of the information and realizing you've filled out the wrong form, so this is probably the best thing. Lastly, when you address your letter with zip+4, it gets to its destination faster.
I use this site quite a bit, when shipping used items I sell on the net, to check the accuracy of the addresses provided to me. I don't think any of the things in the original posting are broken, it's pretty obvious that the form will allow you to look up a zip code by address/city/state or a city/state by zip code.
HOWEVER, there are problems with the data at times. The other day I had an address that just didn't look right. I entered the address/city/state and it told me that it could not locate the zip. So, just out of curiosity, I put the zip that I was provided in, and sure enough, the city and state that I originally entered was found by the site. So, then why couldn't it find the zip when I put the address in? That's the whole point of the site!!
What I find more irritating in the global market place is US sites that offer to sell overseas and then insist that you must have a zip code in american format.
The broken part isn't so much that they have the zip code box. That would allow you to find a city based on the zip. That makes sense. What doesn't make since is that you cannot enter just the zip code.
Is "ZIP Code" really a trademark?!?
My guess is that yes, it is a trade mark. Even though it's in every day speech, think about this: who came up with zip codes? where are they used? The post office, and for mailing you stuff. Why wouldn't it be a TM of the post office?
I realise Americans are continuously coming up with interesting new developments in the English language, but since when is "look up" a verb? The last time I checked, "look" was a verb and "up" was an adverb.
Grammar Grama, in this case "look up" is a phrasal verb, meaning "to search for and find, as in a reference book", as opposed to a verb-adverb pair which would describe literally looking upward.
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Previous: Time Warner Cable registration | Main | Next: Safeco Field garage sign
It's definitely not the friendliest thing on the Web--for my part, I think its greatest sin is making users pick the state from a huge list instead of allowing them to type in a two-letter abbreviation. However, the ZIP code field makes sense if you're using it to get the nine-digit ZIP code when you already have the five-digit code. It's a lot easier to type "94102" than it is to type "San Francisco" and to pick California from a list of over fifty items.
Posted by: Adam Engelhart at September 19, 2005 01:09 AM