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Perhaps the problem is more that you didn't present them with an option to choose the auto-generated option. I think a graceful method would be to allow them to enter a zip code, but have a radio that has the auto-generated option as a choice. So they are presented with "Enter your location" which they proceed to click the radio box. Presumably you could then save the location they manually entered in via a cookie and present that as an option as well.

Actually, I did have that option. The difference is that I had the auto location by default with an option to enter it manually. Perhaps if I had tried it the other way around, it would have worked better. But neither would have really had any effect on the bottom line, so I didn't have the luxury of spending more time to test it.

I've implemented the geolocation bit a few times. What I like to do is have the detected location in the box, but a little faded out, if they click in the box, the entire text is selected (so they can override it just by clicking), and once they've changed and submitted their location it gets cookied so it becomes the default when they come back.

I'm sure it still confuses some people, but the more common it becomes, the more everyone gets used to it.

The benefit differs across markets and audience though, so I agree it shouldn't be a rule of thumb for good design. At least not yet.

More often then not people looking at porn are at home so it works perfectly for that industry.

Why not give them an option to select a location but use their IP to generate a useful default?

That's exactly what I did. I got a bunch of emails informing me of "a bug that had something already typed into the location box," whether that default was accurate or not. Our users aren't necessarily the most tech-savvy.

You have to please everyone. From the morons to the tech savvy. It's a thankless job, because unless you get it exactly right, someone is gonna be pissed off.

How about a button that says "guess my location". Surely no one could be confused by that.

By the time you've read the button, moved the mouse over to it, clicked it, waited for the result to be returned, and verified the accuracy of the result, you could have just typed it yourself.

You don't have to set it up so they have to wait for the result to be returned. Remember, the point of this "guess my location" button has nothing to do with a technical limitation; it's just a way of giving the user a sense of ease. You could easily automatically figure out their location when they come to the site, but just keep it hidden until they click the button.

Steve, I suspect your users are very similar to my users. Sometimes they're not quite ready to accept something, but if you pitch it to them the right way, they'll warm up to it really quick.

For example, you and I know that you can geolocate my ISP to Nagoya with an API call that won't take a milisecond. How about, instead, doing some JQuery magic:

"Asking Google for your location..." (2 seconds)

"Searching for apartments around you..." (2 seconds)

"Picking best apartments..." (2 seconds)

$("precalculated-results").show();

For a second, I thought "wow! another HN reader in Nagoya!" then I realized it was you. ;)

I think one of the problems JangoSteve had with his implementation is that people really don't like to see forms already filled in on their website (we've gotten a lot of complaints about it at our work as well)

I really like the solution that was shown in the related article. All of his Geolocations have a regular text section that says something along the lines of:

"Ship something from _San Jose, CA_. (Not in San Jose? Click Here)"

Which would then (I assume) replace text with a fill-in form using JS.

That would keep the "Why is there information in my form!" support mails down, while at the same time providing the GEOfunctionality and an easy way to correct mistaken information (Porn sites always think I'm in Kasugai, which is about 50km from where I live grin)

And be sure to save their inputted area in a cookie, so they don't have to re-correct your geocache every time they see your site!

> And don't even get me started on the people searching behind a corporate firewall, where the corporate headquarters (and IT dept) were halfway across the US.

Or, indeed, in a different country with a different native language. I worked for one of those for a while, in a job that involved a fair bit of official web browsing (on-line reference materials for various things). Within days of the shift to routing everything through corporate IT, I wanted to kill whoever invented IP geolocation. It's a great idea that should almost never be used in practice.

No matter how many times I change the language on the PayPal page, I get Italian the next time. Just because Tiscali assigned me an IP from "Italian" pool... in UK. IP geolocation can be annoying.

Strangely - porn banners still show correct city in UK, not Italy... maybe PayPal should buy the geo DB from them instead?

IP geolocation can be annoying

Or, rather, web application developers who suck at implementing geolocation well can be annoying.

So how would you do it? I notice you didn't write "IP geolocation", just "geolocation", so perhaps you would use something other than the IP information?

It is clear that no matter how smart you are as a developer, IP-only geolocation can't work reliably, simply because of the proxy issue.

It's more a UI/UX issue. You want to make it clear that the guessed location is only a suggestion so people don't get confused if it's wrong. You also want to make it just as easy to change it (if it's wrong) as if you weren't providing the location suggestion at all. Difficult? Maybe. But not impossible.

And really, it's just balance -- maybe some people will still get confused. But maybe the benefit gained by the people who get their location guessed correctly outweighs the detriment of those who get a bad guess and get confused.

but it confused a lot of people because they weren't expecting it.

counter to the whole "Don't make me think" mantra

The problem is that confusing people forces them to think so you're actually making it harder for them to do what they need done. Honestly I have never seen a site where geolocation was useful. I guess if I were in a location where I didn't know the zip code, or street address, or street name it would be useful if I were looking for, e.g., a good restaurant. But in that situation, I wouldn't be using the internet, I'd just ask someone.

You are exactly right, and I image that this is true for most sites. For example, I do not want a car rental site to geolocate me! I seldom search for car rentals where I live, but often search for rentals at various destinations.

I think its a niche thing. I would assume most people looking at porn are at home. Hopefully.