There used to be only a single field to enter a place name, be it city, city/state, city/country, etc. and it would accept input in whatever format the user wanted. Sounds good in theory, but it actually ends up confusing people and leaving them stuck, searching for instruction.

I'm still not completely satisfied with the three boxes, for the reason you just found. There's not enough indication that you can leave them blank (and sometimes it's Better to leave them blank).

I think the ultimate solution will be a workflow where you pick a city from the map first, then click a link to add your report. You can actually do that now, but it's not very discoverable at the moment.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback. And I'll see about getting those Canadian provences hooked up as "States"!

Jason

written by  Jason Kester on November 19, 2005