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Address verification systems validate a user provided address against a database of known addresses, usually provided by Postal services. An example can be seen at http://www.qas.com/address-search/interactive-demo.htm
Has anyone had any experience with implementing an address verification system in online (application) forms? Any noticeable negative impacts on completion rates?
Any insights or experience you can share would be really appreciated.
It probably depends on your target audience and country. I've seen problems with these systems here in New Zealand because people often don't know their real postcode or official postal suburb. They enter what they think is their address, but the system says it's not valid and they end up frustrated.
I agree with Bennett that it depends on the country.
Just one idea: the great user experience may be achieved if you use only one field for the address and automatically parse user's input (which may be very different of course). Though it's definitely not a great experience for a developer ;), it's not so hard to implement as it may seem.
I personally do not encourage these types of verification systems. Many people in the US live in rural areas where they only have a Rural Route, which can make the experience incredibly frustrating. I myself live on a trail, and those verification systems always throw an error, asking me to correct the street address to "TRL" - which is the same damned thing, so that annoys me quite a lot. I've learned to just write it as TRL, instead of "Trail", but only because those verification systems have caused me so much grief.
I'm from Ireland and we have a very lax address format. Notably, we don't have an postcodes. Many webforms require you to enter a postcode. So it's common to just put "n/a"/"XXXX"/90210/etc. as a postcode just to get past that bit of the form.
One massive problem with address validation IMO is if the website tells you your address is invalid. I strongly suggest rewording that to "We couldn't understand your address format". I know where I live, my address I entered is valid.
The International Postal Union lists address formats for 180 countries. If you can determine the correct format you should go and add adress verification...
However, if you cater for international users it is easier to use a single text box/field where the user can enter the address in his or her format (see Kostya's reply). Somebody can later pick up the entered address and add it to the system manually. I know, it's bad hard manual work, but it works ;)
We have a number of quotation apps, some with address verification functionality and some without (and I'm in the process of scoping out the changes to add it to all apps).
The dropout rates for the apps that do not feature address verification are higher than those that require the user to manually input their full address details. I don't have any data or stats to provide, although I'll try and generate some to illustrate the point.
The only instances I can think of where address verification is cause for increased dropout rates is where it is poorly implemented in the form design, where it may confuse the user - for example, sites where the validation either spawns another window (i.e. not in-page), or the validation pre-fills the form but leaves the cursor at the top...(these examples off the top of my head).
Apart from a poor implementation, all I have seen are positive outcomes from address validation because it saves the user time and effort (and in big web forms this is a massive benefit because completing web forms in general sucks!!).
Interestesting validation, haven't yet seen anything like it. What we have done is we tried forms in which the postal code is informed first, and if verified, fills in the rest of the address, which seems to be quite helpful.
Here is the story: A while ago, Guido migrated from the US to Europe. His wallet got stolen. He reported the theft but the customer agent couldn't process the request since the report form required 5-digit postal codes (and Guido lived in Switzerland which has only 4-digit codes).
When the agent entered a 5 digit code fake, the system refused because the code was either incorrect (starting with 0) or it didn't exist in the US or because the code didn't match the city.
So my stance is: The system should accept anything. During validation, the system should try to match the address with its database. Now we have three situations:
If you can, add Google maps or similar so customers can easily verify the correctness of the address.
I've seen address verification services have positive, and maybe a few negative impacts, on user experience.
It's a positive when it makes autocompletion easy and helps to standardize the address formatting. Users feel secure when they find that they can select the validated, standardized address that matches their input. It's nice to not have to worry about perfect punctuation (when should I put commas or periods?) or capitalization. It's also nice to save a lot of typing when you find the correct suggestion early. Furthermore, depending on system requirements (shipping?), ensuring a valid address can be more important than most other considerations.
On the negative side, it can be annoying to users if the address they want isn't valid or doesn't have results from the service. It's annoying because it can be confusing: having a list of suggestions that don't match what you want can cause the user to be confused about whether they can submit an address that hasn't been validated. (Generally, if you use validated suggestions, it is a good idea to allow the user to still enter whatever they want, regardless of the suggestions; but how do you inform them that they can? It's a problem, but I think it's ok to allow users to just keep typing input if the suggestion doesn't match and not say anything. They may feel insecure that their address isn't pulling up matches, but at least they can submit what they want to submit.)
Sometimes, websites allow the user to input an address, and when they click submit, they validate the input. They then tell the user that the address didn't validate (couldn't verify a match), or they allow the user to choose a matching address. This works for some needs, but personally, I don't think that's as good of a user experience. Generally, this kind of set up doesn't allow users to submit their input when they don't want to use the suggestions.
Full disclosure: I work for SmartyStreets, an address verification service.
