In other words: disable or hide downstream filters, untill (and whenever) the upstream filter is defined. -- Oleh Kovalchuke Interaction Design is design of time http://www.tangospring.com/IxDtopicWhatIsInteractionDesign.htm
On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 2:39 AM, dlambert <[email protected]> wrote: > I used to work for a software company that built a configurator / > business rules engine. We drove web sites where inputs to one field > would impact the availability / validity of options in other fields. > It sounds like you have this sort of scenario, too. > > We had some control over whether any given input would cause > re-evaluation of the rules, such that the other fields (including > drop-downs) would be re-drawn to reflect the choices that were still > valid. > > We found that it was very important to re-draw when changes were > likely to influence other controls on the same page, because users > *really* don't like to make a selection in a control, only to be > told that it's not a valid selection because of a choice they made > two fields upstream. > > This is somewhat analogous to booking a flight, and having gone all > the way through to choosing your seats, etc., be told that you've > got to go back to the beginning because there isn't any room left on > that flight, after all. These situations are sometimes unavoidable, > but they'll never fail to frustrate a user. > > If you've got a high interaction among fields like this, I'd > consider forcing the update so that the user is presented with > choices that are (to the best of your knowledge) valid choices for > them to make. > > > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . > Posted from the new ixda.org > http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=46155 > > > ________________________________________________________________ > 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 > ________________________________________________________________ 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
