You seem to be concatenating a couple problems here, which it means
it's hard to determine the best solution. (1) how do you enter the
first name and does your field contain both rank and first name and
(2) how to enable sorting by last name.
One thing I'm absolutely sure of: with all 5 branches of service
involved (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard - have I missed
any?) "rank" would require a very long selection menu (whatever its
form). Another thing is that family members and persons responsible
for entering this data will be very clear on what the rank of any
person in question. So, in this case, your issue in this case is
spelling problem, which is probably best handled by back end error
handling (The computer can spell check and offer an appropriate
alternative much more quickly than a person can find the entry in the
pull down or selection menu).
I'd actually give the data-entry people a pull-down for service
branch, and then have back end programming such that the proper list
of ranks available in that service drop down (which significantly
cuts the number of available titles. There are very few Adminals in
the Army.) and then have text fields for first name and last name.
Make sure you give them the chance to correct spelling on both those
last two -- Spelling errors in name -- for whatever reason -- seem to
be rife in the military.
katie
User Experience Strategist
[email protected]
On Jun 23, 2009, at 11:44 AM, Anthony Zeoli wrote:
We’re building a tribute area on an author site to fallen soldiers.
I want
family members to be able to sort by last name, which means that I
need to
put a field in the DB that separates rank from First Name and Last
Name.
Does anyone know where I can find a list of all military ranks for a
selection box or drop down? Or, should I just put a field in the
form. Which
do you think it easier and does the job most effectively. Yes, I
too hate
long scrolling drop down menus. Any suggestions?
--
Anthony Zeoli | ZAAH.COM
VP Product & Business Development
e: [email protected]
+1 631.873.2007 | Direct
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+1 631.873.2050 | Fax
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Twitter: djtonyz
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