I agree with Katie...your folks are probably familiar with Boolean logic
("should I buy the book and the coffee...or buy the toaster?"), they just
don't call it that =]A variant of Katie's suggestion would be to put the Both and Either options in between each one, as radio buttons or regular buttons (probably not dropdowns, tho), with a "sample" above them, as in: Example: Books (O)and ( )or Coffee Now you try: [Option List] ( )and ( )or [Option List] [Option List] ( )and ( )or [Option List] [Option List] ( )and ( )or [Option List] [Option List] ( )and ( )or [Option List] [Option List] ( )and ( )or [Option List] The complexity will highly depend on what they're choosing from, so the above example may be too big for your needs. As usual, whatever you do, show it to them before you build it, and they should tell you if it's still confusing, or too complex. They may even say they don't need that much granularity, and would rather you provide shortcuts to the 5 most common combinations, and save the AND/OR stuff for the experts. Bryan http://www.bryanminihan.com -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Katie Albers Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2008 4:38 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Boolean AND & OR in a graphical user interface I've had success solving this problem when I stop thinking about it in mathematical terms. I use the paradigm of two columns with the options in single-select lists and put "Both" and "Either" above those lists. So it ends up looking sort of like this: Search for documents with [ ] both [ ] either Term A Term A Term B Term B Term C Term C Term D Term D Depending on your application, some variation on the "Both"/"Either" terminology may go far in helping you solve this. Katie ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
