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I've noticed that in many applications, the address input fields (or search bars) have a fixed width and height, which means long addresses often require horizontal scrolling. For example:

In Google Maps, if I type a long address, only a portion of it is visible at a time, making it difficult to review the full input and it doesn’t adjust the input field height to wrap long addresses, so I have to scroll within the field to see the full address.

I'm working on a design where displaying the entire address would improve usability and readability for users, especially when they need to confirm the full input before submitting.

Is there a common UX or technical reason why these input fields are typically fixed in size? Are there best practices or alternatives for designing address fields that can dynamically expand to fit longer text inputs?

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Not sure if you are trying to just copy other applications which will a wrong approach. If you feel that a wider search bar is important for your users, that's what you should do. For example, if you observe the search bar on top of the current UX StackExchange page, it resizes based on page width.

A couple of reasons I can think of for Google Maps doing what they do would be:

  1. Accuracy of search: Google is confident is narrowing down search results with minimal keywords. There is simply no need to type long addresses. If you use the building name and the city, Google Maps will display pretty accurate results.
  2. Responsive design: The web version is responsive and the width of the search input is set to comfortably fit a phone screen.

It is not clear from the question if your application design uses address search feature or just saves text input for address. If it uses an address search feature, there must be a maps api running at the back. You can trying using the map view as an alternative and allow users to set a marker on the map for better accuracy.

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    Thanks for the input! My application is a chatbot with a fixed-width. The address search bar shows a default full address, which users can confirm or edit to search for nearby doctors. Typically, they don’t need the entire address since the building, city or zip code should be enough. Commented Oct 31, 2024 at 15:09
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Well, most screens are assumed to have a fixed horizontal width, which may be quite low (especially on mobile). If your field expands horizontally, presumably your entire content may cause your viewport to need to be horizontally scrolled. By convention, this is considered worse than having to scroll an individual field. (Scroll wheels on typical mice, for instance, only allow vertical scrolling.)

In short, if you want your input field to expand, you'll still have to limit it sooner or later to avoid having to scroll the whole window.

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