Re: C+S : When to use a drop-down list

Hi Anne,

I always avoided plain drop-down-lists because of their low usability,
instead I used accelerated lists with success: my users loved them.

As of the number of entries, 1000 or 2000, no problem. Only not in web
apps bus desktop. Anyway, a web app today is as responsive as desktop
apps were when I started using those controls.
The trouble with long lists in web apps is the time that might take to
send then to the client computer if the web app is to be operated thru
the web, else if it's for an intranet then no problem. There are ways
to mitigate this delay.

Now I can't but later or tomorrow I'll try to make some animated
samples of the kind of controls I used so you can see. I'ts much like
the idea you are considering.

The main problem is how do you communicate the users about the added
affordances. I did it by telling them in the training, and having ALL
lists work the same way, all of them no matter how lengthy or short
the contents were.

When the list has few elements then I think it's better to use radio
buttons because they depict all the options always, and the user can
choose with a single click.

--
Juan Lanus

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