THE INVESTIGATION
What do users actually need to succeed?
Digging into Google Analytics revealed that many users tried multiple times to enter their postal code, often abandoning entirely after repeated errors. Hotjar recordings confirmed the pattern – users were:
- Entering only the numeric portion (1234)
- Adding spaces between numbers and letters (1234 AB)
- Clicking the “Enter” button without inputing a value
The core problem? Although our system expected a “1234AB” format, there was no visual guidance or instructions to convey that.
Furthermore, eventual feedback offered only a generic error message: “Your postal code doesn’t seem to be correct.”
Old postal code input field