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State drop down boxes

Why do nearly all websites sites use these ridiculous drop down boxes, requiring extra steps and time, for entering ones state location? Just seems nuts.

Comments

  • edited October 2017
    It's valuable feedback data to let your personal record profile in the national database know:

    • If you can spell, or at least recognize the spelling of, your state
    • If you still know what state you live in
    • If you will blindly follow purposeless instructions (i.e. "use this stupid drop-down box") *

    * This is the most important of the three, as it gives your handlers valuable insight into the potential for manipulating your probable political leanings.
  • But my state, Confusion, is not listed in the damn menu list.
  • edited October 2017
    Now that is a problem! Now that you mention it, Chaos isn't listed either.
  • TedTed
    edited October 2017
    @MFO Members Time to drop out of this thread !
    Regards,
    Ted:)
  • edited October 2017
    Forget it Ted. It's a legitimate technical question I'd like to know the answer to.
  • I'll post my theory: drop down boxes ensure that USPS-approved abbreviations for each state/province are used. For example, MI entered in a box could refer to Michigan, Mississippi or Missouri. Using a drop-down box ensures that MS is used for Mississippi and MO used for Missouri. Also, AL is used for Alabama vs AB for Alberta.
  • @carew388- sounds right to me. Wouldn't have thought of that angle. Nice work.
  • Mark: I owe you an apology, I was trying to make a bad joke. You ask a legitimate technical question.
    Regards,
    Ted:)
  • edited October 2017
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  • Your voice response example is a good illustration of why query/data entry systems often use "controlled vocabularies" (pre-set, well-defined lists of possible entries). They eliminate ambiguities, ensure clear data entry. Radio buttons, drop down boxes, or on phones, TTMF (touch tone multi-frequency) buttons, etc.

    With telephone trees, I often try pressing '0' (zero, not "oh"). Sometimes it works, sometimes I still have to wade through the four levels until it's accepted. But I generally choose buttons over voice to navigate the trees quickly and clearly.
  • edited October 2017
    The issue that prompted this is that I can never enter more than one letter, For example, if I enter M (for Minnesota) I get the selections as outlined by Maurice above. If I enter the M and try to follow it with an N for the Minnesota abbreviation the M I typed is replaced by the N and the drop box just takes me to states that start with N. All in all it's type M, click, scroll, click when just typing MN would be simpler. Whining I know, but I was just wondering what the programming logic/thinking is.
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  • edited October 2017
    Mark said:

    The issue that prompted this is that I can never enter more than one letter, For example, if I enter M (for Minnesota) I get the selections as outlined by Maurice above. If I enter the M and try to follow it with an N for the Minnesota abbreviation the M I typed is replaced by the N and the drop box just takes me to states that start with N. All in all it's type M, click, scroll, click when just typing MN would be simpler. Whining I know, but I was just wondering what the programming logic/thinking is.

    Poor programming. It is pretty easy to do it the way you are expecting.
  • Maurice said:

    @msf It doesn't matter if you use buttons or voice to navigate on a poorly designed telephone tree. You have to listen a minute or two to know how to respond to get to the next branch.

    If the phone tree doesn't allow you to "type ahead", it doesn't matter whether you know how to get to the next branch or not, you still have to wait.

    Assuming you don't have to wait to input something, then there are at least a couple of things you can try, even without knowing how to navigate the phone tree. You can guess '0'. Some systems accept that as a request to take you out of the phone tree to a human being.

    Alternatively, you can try to short circuit the input. Many phone trees will kick you over to a human being after you have "failed" to navigate the system a few times. Inputting an octothorpe often triggers a desired failure.

    I'm sure people can come up with other things to try.

    But if this isn't the first time you've called the system, you don't need to listen for a minute or two to know how to get to the next branch. You know it already from the last time you called.
  • I have found that "Agent" bypasses some phone trees to get to a human.
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  • beebee
    edited October 2017
    This website will help you "get a human" at a variety of different companies when you call:

    gethuman.com/phone-number

    As an example, I typed in Eversource (my Electric Utility Company) and got this:
    image
  • @bee - thanks, that's great!

    I checked another utility, and it said: press 1 then 2 then 0# each time it asks for your account number. Now that's the kind of pounding away with zeros and octothorpes I was talking about.:-)
  • @msf,

    You made my day with that one...Octothorpe!

    #######
  • Eight thorpes?? What the heck is a thorpe, anyway?
  • edited October 2017
    Evening @Old_Joe et al.

    Holy Moly...........

    https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/189970/what-is-a-thorpe

    the stuff we learn from investing discussions, eh? See here!

    Now, ASCII, hexadecimal and binary I did study and know in the much earlier days of my brain cells. Don't recall any other "octo" related to "thorpes".

    One might presume threads may travel far from the path, in the near future; if the folks from the northern states at this forum find a most disagreeable winter period, as in "cabin fever".
  • edited October 2017
    1. Press 0.

    2. If no response, press 0 #.

    3. If that doesn’t work, start screaming “Representative!” like a mad-man.
    Not pretty - but usually gets their attention.

  • Even worse than the list of states is the list of countries, presented in alphabetical order, with USA at or near the bottom. My mouse or finger controls often slip off the list before I make it all the way to the bottom. Then I'm very careful the second try.
    Some web sites know that most (or all) of their customers are from the USA and they put it at the top (alphabetical order be damned).
  • edited October 2017
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  • @Maurice If you shop at Lowes what do you expect?
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