Hot answers tagged dropdown
91
You don't select a default at all
Using a drop down list or a radio group - you let the user decide - and this also prevents accidental submision of a form without the user setting this value (assuming it's gets validated) because there is no other way of validating it - only the user knows their gender so there is no right/wrong validation other than 'is ...
25
The best proven solution:
Alphabetical dropdown list, with default selected country being the one that IP corresponds to.
In 98% of time the IP will get the right country and customer doesn't have to change anything. If not, the customer can use the dropdown list to locate his country.
25
This kind of UI elements exists and is used in many applications even if differently.
Facebook events
Google calendar
If well designed they are even more affordant than the usual radio buttons.
The thing is, because of this affordance they seem "auto selected" so there is no need of a validation like in your example. Therefore I would say radio ...
24
Microsoft does this in Windows Explorer! I noticed this on my Windows 7 work computer just a few weeks ago, and I can't stress enough just how handy it is (in certain situations)
The key here is that they made it exceedingly functional but it also stays out of the way until the user discovers it.
22
I respectfully disagree with Michael's answer. I can't speak to desktop GUIs, but in web forms you want to avoid having a default unless you believe a large portion of your user's (maybe 90%+) will select that value. Particularly if it's a required field.
Why? Because you're likely to introduce errors because people breeze through forms quickly online - ...
22
There's lots of research in Human Computer Interaction on this issue and the general concensus is that breadth beats depth (read: wide top level navigation beats nested submenus).
This is the case due to Short Term Memory (STM) storage issues and how STM is affected by both breath and depth. Pointing to some hard research should help your case to your ...
20
Fun Solution: Translate the entire site into Farsi with English at the top that says "Not Afghani? Select a new Country"
Less fun solution: Put the top 5 countries that visit your site as the top 5 choices. People chose the first when they realize they will have to dig through dozens of countries.
20
A single button should perform an action, and not act as a radio button. If you want buttons to act as radio buttons, you should use a segmented button.
There is established precedent for this in both mobile and web UI, so people are likely to already understand what they do. Additionally the design of segmented buttons shows that the buttons are ...
19
Q1: First, the convention is to have these on the right, correct? Why
is that?
There are a few reasonable explanations for putting the drop-down arrow on the right (at least in LTR languages):
Readability: Since LTR text naturally starts on the left, this design gives the drop-down arrow some natural whitespace in most cases, and helps make the ...
18
I have no idea as to the actual correct answer to this question, but let me speculate: I think it's because the web has hyperlinks. Clicking on something on a web site is associated with visiting a different page, and as such, if you were to create a dropdown menu that activates on click, the expectation of what it may do when activated is uncertain: will it ...
18
I would guess that users can't see why you require the country and so are picking the first one in the list just to get through the form.
Perhaps you need to explain why you need this a bit more clearly. I notice you have:
Please tell us where you live so we can show you books that are available to you
at the bottom of the form, but this could be easy ...
17
Put the most common countries first, as someone else already said.
Also, consider setting an initial value based on IP lookup? It won't be right all the time, but it won't go wrong as often as your current method. :-) Definitely accompany it with something like "we need your address because... and have made a guess based on your IP address".
17
A dropdown list (or combobox) should already be a clear indication that you need to select an item from there, so wasting the first item by telling someone this is redundant and a poor idea.
The only times that I would recommend having some other text in the dropdown are:
when it is not essential to select an item
when you want effectively to select ...
16
It depends. What are you creating? How and where are you marketing it? The number of men or women in a country is not what makes the difference. For example, a website about makeup will probably have more female visitors than male, even if it's a city of mostly men.
Also, it might be worth considering whether you need gender. Article about this: ...
14
This type of button is usually called a 'Split Button'.
The glossary of the Windows User Experience Interaction Guidelines defines the term 'split button' as:
A bipartite command button that
includes a small button with a
downward pointing triangle on the
rightmost portion of the main button.
Users click the triangle to display
variations of a ...
14
Your users are sending you a clear message: they don't want to tell their country at this point in the process (the control is straightforward and other users do specify their country, so I don't think they select Afghanistan by accident). You'll either have to convince them to tell it anyway, or listen to them.
Looking at your website, I can think of ...
13
There are two reasons that multi-level nested menus do not provide the best usability.
It is hard for users to physically select the first level item, then the second level, then the third. There is a tendency for the user's mouse to slip off their intended target, and then they have to go back to the top level and start the navigation process again.
...
13
Unless you can proceed without selecting (leave the field blank) one SD options, I would suggest you go with a radio button.
You layout remains consistent if you are using the same input mechanism for similar tasks. Making it easy for the user to proceed quickly.
Radio buttons are faster (easier also in many cases) than using a drop down menu. The ...
11
I don't think "insensitivity" has anything to do with it.
If almost all your users are from the US, it makes sense to make everything as easy as possible for them. That's good practice.
Having said that, sometimes I've jumped straight to "U", didn't find the US and had to scroll back up. The important thing is that the user can still start typing the ...
11
Please ignore the first part of the answer, I was referring to drop-down lists
instead of menus. Update below.
Pros
Long lists use very little space (de-clutter interface)
The list is scaleable (you can add more items later if need without any GUI change)
Keyboard can be used to access items (very useful for advanced users)
It's a very common element ...
10
It depends on what you want to do. :)
Use checkboxes (or other toggle buttons) if you want to provide for applying several filters at once. If you want to use them for single value, then listen to @AndroidHustle regarding manipulating them, and only use them for single, independent, boolean values.
download bmml source – Wireframes created ...
10
Keep it simple, make the search parse both datasets simultaneously and use a single input
download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups
9
If you are providing an autocomplete field, you are helping your users find information in a long list quickly. Pagination of results obviously doesn't improve the UX because flipping through pages isn't much different from scrolling a regular drop-down list. Therefore, simply don't display any results until there are no more than 10 left (the number may be ...
9
Go with check boxes for multi-select inputs.
It is a norm in implementation since the first GUIs and it a standard practice in UX too. Nielsen's article confirming the use of check boxes: http://www.nngroup.com/articles/checkboxes-vs-radio-buttons/
Checkboxes are used when there are lists of options and the user may select any number of choices, ...
8
I wrote about this a while back: http://www.nexustechnologiesllc.com/blog/fixing-registration-forms-country-selection/
Here's the "solution" part:
First of all, the right way to handle country selection is often to not have it at all. You need to ask yourself – “what do I need country for?” The same thing holds true for all address fields actually. If your ...
8
There is a issue of the number of links you need to access. Dropdowns can give access to many more links.
There is the vertical space issue. Floating dropdowns save you some space.
And there is the ease of use issue. I tend to think that if your website has distinct sections, e.g., faq, tour and support, and each one of these sections has a few ...
8
I think you should put them under "Advanced" search options. By default, you should search both options without forcing the user to choose either one (or select one from many). A good example is Google, there's one text field and a"search" button, that's it... advanced users can drill down themselves.
8
In my personal view dropdowns are outdated and quite frankly rather annoying to interact with.
They are
fiddly when opening/closing,
most often they don't provide much help when scanning items,
when combined it is cumbersome to go back a level (e.g. you need to open the Main Heading dropdown again) and
when holding many items, a lot of scrolling back and ...
8
As long as it is clear from your formatting of the links that they are links, you shouldn't have a problem with this.
It is basically a drop down menu, and they are used all over the place without too much of an issue. Additionally you are using verbs in the menu items, so it is clear that selecting one of them will perform an action.
7
If the field is mandatory, then there is no selection at all, hence the dropdown should be filled with its only value and disabled.
If the field is optional, then the dropdown effectively has two values: "no email account" and the value with the account. So there's no problem there.
I agree that in this kind of situations there is value is displaying the ...
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