207 ‘Address Validator’ Design Examples

Validation of the user’s address during the checkout flow can help avoid severe issues such as delivery delays or undelivered orders. This is both in the site’s and the user’s interest. Yet, address validators also pose a roadblock in the user’s checkout flow. Given the high complexity in accurately validating an entire address, it’s little surprise that we consistently observe the flow, design, and microcopy of address validators to be the direct cause for checkout abandonments. For instance, 86% of sites provide validation error messages that are very generic (such as “Invalid [field name]”), offering little assistance or insights.