How to enable users to insert an infinity number

Question

I am designing a web page which give admin users the opportunity to manage the users below them. in one section of this admin page, the admin user is required to fill out how many queries he permits to each user below him to run in this system (i.e. queries limit).

This input looks like this:

The admin can enter a number in this box, increase it or decrease it.

The problem is: the admin should have an option to permit the user to run an infinity queries, i.e. not limit the number of queries he can run.

It should look something like this:

How can I manage allow the users to enter an infinity number, in an efficient and clean way?

Answer 1

Add a checkbox labelled 'Limit number of queries'.

And only make the input field active if this checkbox is checked.

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Alternatively if you must use the infinity icon, keep it simple and place it to the right of the '+' button, in the same style.

This would also adhere to the perception of hierarchy.

i.e. the left button decreases the value, and the right button increases the value, so a button even further right should increase the value even more.

It's also worth disabling the infinity button if the value is already infinity, to make the user aware of the allowable (or disallowable) operations.

Answer 2

How about using something like this?

Answer 3

This seems very close to a very common pattern for pagination by limiting searches per page, e.g. datatables:

In your case you only want to display the first page, but it's still pretty much the same concept.

1. Then instead of 'infinity' seeing as you're talking about limits, 'unlimited' or 'none' would do.
2. This gets rid of all the complexity around @MSalter's question "what's infinity - 1?".
3. You keep it as one input

Edit: As other's have commented, this would work well as radio buttons:

Edit: From @FKEinternet's comment there is indeed an example of this in the Windows power options:

and further to that, in the advanced options, they use '0' as an infinity placeholder which gets replaced with 'Never':

Edit: I'm assuming here that users will have a relatively small set of options for the query limits. If every single user can potentially have a different limit, then a number input makes more sense. However if there is a common set of limits, then you have the benefit here that you combine the two inputs into one.

Answer 4

In scenarios where a setting of zero does not make sense, zero is sometimes used for infinity. It does not really make sense but I think I've seen it in more than one application so as a user I'd see it as reasonable behavior. Of course it's important to add a label like "0 for no limit". The upside to this approach is that it uses a standard UI component and needs no conditional logic for hiding the control.

Answer 5

Given the OP's wording of his question, I would implement Joel Tebbett's first suggestion this way:

This would adhere to the perception of heirarchy as noted in his second option.

Answer 6

While possibly not the best suggestion i have seen many interfaces that address this constraint by allowing a -1 input with a meaning of (unlimited)

See references to software using this "https://www.google.com/search?q=%22enter+-1+for+unlimited%22"

Answer 7

Just accept empty inputs.

A limit of infity is the same as no limit. If the input is properly labeled, leaving a field labeled as "limit" blank really says, that there should be no limit.

Depending on the background of the users and the importance of people knowing that infinity is an option, this can be made obvious to all people by placing a small hint like "leave blank for no limit" next to the input.

Answer 8

It's important to remember that not everybody understands what "infinity" is, or what the infinity symbol means. This is another reason to go with some variation of limit (unlimited, no limit, etc.) rather than using an infinity symbol.

I recommend designing an interface that sets a reasonable default based on the most common use case for administrators.

If the most common use case is that users have no query limits, but when they do it is specific:

If the most common use case is that users have no query limits, but when they do it is unspecific:

If the most common use case is that users have query limits, but the number needs to be specific:

If the most common use case is that users have query limits, but the exact number is not important: