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Patterns

Find an address

Help users to enter addresses so they will be recognised by DWP services

Find an address is a postcode lookup pattern for use in DWP services. It works with the DWP Address Service (an internal API).

Principles

An address lookup should:

  • find the right address without making the user do unnecessary work
  • allow different postcode formats without enforcing spacing or capitalisation
  • make it easy to choose manual address entry at any point
  • include a confirmation step (either for the address alone or as part of a Check answers page)

When to use this pattern

Use this pattern when users need to find or enter an address.

When to consider something else

Do not ask users to enter an address if DWP already has this information. Instead consider presenting it back to them (if you can do this securely) and asking them to confirm or update it.

Manual address entry using multiple text boxes or a single free text box is sometimes a better default option than an address lookup. Follow the GOV.UK guidance for manual address entry.

This pattern is designed for use with UK residential addresses. You may find that you need to adapt it (for example by changing field labels or adding more address lines) if you often ask for:

  • business or organisational addresses, for example schools or care homes
  • addresses outside the UK

Design goals and metrics

The pattern aims to quickly find a unique address while not making the user do unnecessary work.

Possible metrics include:

  • Number of failed address matches
  • Time to complete task and task success rate

How well this pattern works for users is very dependent on the performance of the underlying address search: a poorly performing search that fails to find an address will be a bad user experience even if the search and results screens are themselves well designed.

Services using this pattern

A similar pattern using radios for results has been successfully used in the Child Maintenance Service.

Discuss on GitHub

There is a public discussion for this topic on GitHub where you can share anything you think might be useful. Discuss Find an address on GitHub.

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