How to choose a setting from a set, when the act of choosing automatically sets the value?

Question

Here's the scenario: The user is on a screen where they are able to change several settings. Any changes in the UI are immediately committed (there's no edit/save interaction).

The question: One of these settings is to choose a logging level from a set of options. What's the best way to represent to the user these options? We currently have a drop-down, but the interaction doesn't make it clear that something is changing in the back end.

Also of note: This is not a web site. This is for enterprise software.

Answer 1

In your scenario, you're doing the right thing by avoiding drop down, because some browser fires an "onChange()" event when you hit arrow up/down key, while other browser requires you to hit enter key to fire the "onchange()" event. This is particularly important to note when your screen lacks Save button.

So I guess your only other logical choices would be radio buttons or pills.

^{download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups}

An alternative would be to use radio Button Groups in Bootstrap framework. http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/javascript.html#buttons