My attention was caught today by an online discussion here hosted by the English-language Vietnam News, about introducing a postal code system to Vietnam to resolve the problem of duplicate thoroughfare names within cities.
Of interest to me is that Vietnam has had a postal code system for years, updating it from a 5-digit code to a 6-digit code in 2004. Clearly, though the system has been designed, it has not been implemented to the extent of informing the residents.
This is not as unusual as you might think. Some countries - Bahrain and Nicaragua spring to mind - are coy about their postal code systems, even to the extent of requesting people not to use them because sorting continues to be done manually. I've had people from Costa Rica swear blind to me that their country has no postal code system, even after I've pointed them towards the postal website describing it. Clearly, whilst some countries are happy to design postal code systems, the expense of implementing them - mechanised sorting systems, information dissemination and so on, tends to put a brake on following the projects through.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
For the love of web forms!
It may seem to you, faithful reader, that I have become a little obsessed with web data entry forms lately. Apart from being the front end of company databases that we crash into most regularly, it is also a reflection of the fact that I am currently working on a book about .... web data entry forms!
But I am not alone in this obsession. My colleagues across at the Data Value Talk blog have decided to try to think positively and to collect some examples of GOOD web data entry screens. If they get enough, they'll open up a competition for the best examples.
So, if you come across any well-designed (or badly designed!) web data entry forms, take a screen dump and scoot along to the Data Value Talk blog - I, for one, look forward to seeing them.
But I am not alone in this obsession. My colleagues across at the Data Value Talk blog have decided to try to think positively and to collect some examples of GOOD web data entry screens. If they get enough, they'll open up a competition for the best examples.
So, if you come across any well-designed (or badly designed!) web data entry forms, take a screen dump and scoot along to the Data Value Talk blog - I, for one, look forward to seeing them.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Stop. Step back. Think.
Has creating web input forms become automatic? Does anybody ever test the forms they put online? Does anybody ever stop, take a step back, and think things through?
Yesterday, faced with yet another clone form expecting of me a typical United States' address, I came to the inevitable drop down requesting (no, demanding!) my state. The company gave no option to clear this field, nor to choose a non-US variant, so, as they had kindly defaulted to Alabama, I moved on.
For the next field, country, I chose "Netherlands". And look what happened:
Those who know me and my work will know that I have hammered on for years about making web forms dynamic, and that input fields should change on the basis of country and language. But why (oh why?), when a company follows this mantra, are the fields that cause this dynamic change ALWAYS added AFTER the fields that they change? Is it a conspiracy to annoy the customer? To make the customer work at their very hardest in order to buy the products?
Or is somebody just not thinking things through?
Yesterday, faced with yet another clone form expecting of me a typical United States' address, I came to the inevitable drop down requesting (no, demanding!) my state. The company gave no option to clear this field, nor to choose a non-US variant, so, as they had kindly defaulted to Alabama, I moved on.
For the next field, country, I chose "Netherlands". And look what happened:
Those who know me and my work will know that I have hammered on for years about making web forms dynamic, and that input fields should change on the basis of country and language. But why (oh why?), when a company follows this mantra, are the fields that cause this dynamic change ALWAYS added AFTER the fields that they change? Is it a conspiracy to annoy the customer? To make the customer work at their very hardest in order to buy the products?
Or is somebody just not thinking things through?
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Data Quality: Perception versus Reality
A new white paper, "Data Quality: Perception versus Reality", by Graham Rhind and sponsored by Capscan Ltd, reporting on the results of a data quality survey, is available for download here
Monday, December 29, 2008
BBC resurrects Serbia and Montenegro
For a country that lasted only existed for a few years, Serbia & Montenegro has real staying power! In an online news report on the BBC News website from 26th December 2008, the BBC used a map of Serbia & Montenegro in a report instead of just Serbia.
To be fair, the image was corrected a few hours later:
but it does leave me wondering how long it will be before these errors are no longer being made. Perhaps a bloody war is required to force change into people's consciousness?
To be fair, the image was corrected a few hours later:
but it does leave me wondering how long it will be before these errors are no longer being made. Perhaps a bloody war is required to force change into people's consciousness?
Thursday, November 6, 2008
The world according to Barclaycard
A letter in the Guardian pointed me to a competition being run by Barclaycard (a UK credit card company) to win an Aston Martin car, coinciding with the release of the newest James Bond film.
The terms and conditions take the term "geographically challenged" to new heights.
The United Kingdom, for the record, is the island of Great Britain with its islands, and Northern Ireland. If Barclaycard had wished to exclude Northern Ireland they could have used the term "Great Britain". "ROI" (Republic of Ireland) has been an independent nation for getting on for a century, and The Channel Islands are not now, and never have been, part of the United Kingdom.
One wonders, though, what the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight have done to upset Barclaycard!
The terms and conditions take the term "geographically challenged" to new heights.
The United Kingdom, for the record, is the island of Great Britain with its islands, and Northern Ireland. If Barclaycard had wished to exclude Northern Ireland they could have used the term "Great Britain". "ROI" (Republic of Ireland) has been an independent nation for getting on for a century, and The Channel Islands are not now, and never have been, part of the United Kingdom.
One wonders, though, what the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight have done to upset Barclaycard!
GRC Database Information, welcome to the club!
Yes, inevitably.
After creating these posts about companies taking years to realize that, for example,the country Serbia and Montenegro no longer exists, I thought it was perhaps best that I checked my online shop to be sure that there were no surprises there.
What did I find? Yep, Serbia & Montenegro, nestling in the countries list.
I hasten to add that this list is built in to the e-commerce software and can't be changed by the user, and the developers have since apologised and promised to correct it. But this does show how hard it can be to keep up with all real world changes in all parts of a company.
After creating these posts about companies taking years to realize that, for example,the country Serbia and Montenegro no longer exists, I thought it was perhaps best that I checked my online shop to be sure that there were no surprises there.
What did I find? Yep, Serbia & Montenegro, nestling in the countries list.
I hasten to add that this list is built in to the e-commerce software and can't be changed by the user, and the developers have since apologised and promised to correct it. But this does show how hard it can be to keep up with all real world changes in all parts of a company.
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