On Dec 18, 2007, at 8:31 AM, Billy Cox wrote:
> I cannot understand why a state dropdown would display state
> abbreviations
> versus the actual name of the state. One would assume that the
> average user
> knows the abbreviation of their own state, but I used to assume that
> everyone knew that they could TAB through a form.
Even today, Mac users can choose to tab between just text boxes and
list, or between all controls. Used to be that they could only tab
between text fields.
Any keyboard shortcut is a power user feature, even one so elementary
as tabbing through a form. Many many users don't use it, even those
who have learned that they can use it at some point in the past.
> As for the maximum number of entries in a dropdown, I don't know
> that those
> rules necessarily apply now that everyone has a scrolly-mouse and
> one can
> also jump through the list by typing the first character of the
> desired
> selection.
Even more of a power-user feature, and not all software supports it,
and lists out of order tank with it.
And always be cautious when you say "everyone". Perhaps 5% of user
are still on Win 98, and probably don't have such. Laptops don't have
such. Mac mice prior to the current Mighty Mouse don't have such.
(And sometimes those break: my Mighty Mouse only scrolls up and to the
sides, not down. Rrrr.)
The places where you can get away with more than the "recommended"
number of items in a popup would be: when there are logical and
visible chunks, when the user can be expected to be intimately
familiar with the large set of contents (like with a list of states,
for US users), or when there's no better choice (like countries of the
world; even if you break down by continent, you still approach 40 for
Africa).
-- Jim Drew
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