Posted by Rob McAninch on 12/27/05 04:32

Jose>:
>>>> But when a variant is rejected, the user should clearly be told why,
>>>> or they will get frustrated.
>>
>>
>> You can make it as clear as you like. I would say that saying "Your input
>> '...' was not recognized as a country name. Please select a country
>> name or two-letter country code from the list at ..." would be enough.
>
>
> Well, then you are giving a list, but AFTER a failed attempt.

Why a failed attempt? If you have you done your work a list like:

England
Northern Ireland
Scotland
Wales
Isle of Man
UK
Great Britain
Britain

Will get distilled to usable information, if you are shipping then
be sure you get something your shipper accepts as deliverable. If
you are just wanting someone's generally geographic location then
lump it all into UK, Europe, Eurasia, or whatever you want to deal with.

> Further,
> you are making the user go elsewhere for that list, wondering if when he
> comes back his partly filled-in form will be erased or not (browser and
> settings dependent, no?).

If the person didn't type something I could transform into a
deliverable address (which would be displayed for confirmation) then
I might consider a drop down list to provide the 'near' matches.
Mapquest.com does a similar thing, if I type in only a city I get a
list of links to choose from.

> As a user, I'd rather have a drop-down which
> allows typing (and fills in as I go) in circumstances where an exact
> match is required. I am given the list from which I must match up
> front, and my job as a user is easy.

Generally an exact match shouldn't be _required_, or at any rate it
can't be *expected* since you have to validate everything on the
server anyhow. I might expect you to choose a country name from a
drop down list but if I only verify that it is a string of letters
and spaces I might get 'foo bar' submitted. How useful is that?


> I would like the most common three or four countries to be at the top
> though, as well as in their proper place alphabetcally.

Actually, that annoys me. And how do you decide what's common,
perhaps demographics if you're selling a product, but if you sell
international those four at the top just annoy other potential
customers.

> As for what should be recognized as a country - if you "recognize
> everything" then the problem in data analysis comes later, but it is the
> same problem, and the one person best able to sort the ambiguity is long
> gone.

You have to validate the data whether it comes from a drop down list
or is typed in. And this validation should be the same for either
method since your HTML form may not be what is actually submitting
the data to your server.

The question is what is easier for the majority of users. I've
watched a number of less experienced web users and most scroll the
list. They don't know the shortcuts of tapping the first letter (and
even if they do, that list from earlier should point out why a drop
down list may not be the best choice.)

--
Rob McAninch
http://rock13.com

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