[thelist] Dropdowns - good or bad?

aardvark roselli at earthlink.net
Tue Nov 21 10:52:37 CST 2000


as far as using select menus for navigation, that is forbidden over 
here... they are very bad navigation elements and should not be 
used as such (i keep meaning to write an article on this) without a 
very good reason...

as for using menus in form elements, i will not use them for 
information that the user knows well... for instance, i always get e-
commerce clients who want to have a select menu for the state... i 
always fight them and end up making it a text field... i have found 
people type their state abbreviation more quickly than they select it 
from a menu... same thing with country... feeding a list of 50 states 
(or how many countries) with the requisite <option> tags is also 
page bloat that is unnecessary given how well users work without 
them...

there are other cases where select menus are great... anywhere 
the user is presented with a limited set of options that are not 
hardwired into their brain, and that do not require the user to see all 
options at once to make a selection...

> From: "Herzog, Ari" <Ari_Herzog at Instron.com>
>
> My boss just forwarded me a link to here:
> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20001112.html
> It's an article by Jacob Neilsen. I don't really have an opinion of him,
> but from what I *have* read, it's contrary to my own feelings.
> 
> Now, he strikes it again.
> 
> Seems my boss is into Nielsen. Are there any other links of other articles
> that are opposite this one?




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