[Sigia-l] Dropdown Menus listing states, regions

[Cho, Jason]

What is the purpose of designating regions-- do they map to your
organization's service or research areas, or do they simply attempt to
break down a lengthy list?

If the former, as on my organization's contact page, we'd provide
separate mechanisms for browsing by organization-defined region (for
experts) or browsing by political jurisdiction (for everybody). In our
case, you can locate the office serving your area either by selecting
your state from a drop-down list or clicking on your area in a map which
overlays our divisions with state boundaries.

If the latter, well, I wouldn't. You could use two drop-downs-- the
first to select the country, then the second to select state or province
if applicable. I know intuitively how many Ms to press in a list of
states, states plus territories, or their respective sets of postal
abbreviations.

I have also seen sites which use the format United States-Alabama /
United States-Alaska all the way down, unwieldy but straightforward and
easier to implement.


US regions are problematic because, aside from New England, they are not
exact. The allocation of various political entities to various
geographic entities is a frequent subject of debate at the Open
Directory. Even in a simple four-way split of the US into Northeast,
South, Midwest, and West, border states like West Virginia or large ones
like Texas can be argued into more than one part of the country. The
list you provided has so many categories that it multiplies considerably
the opportunity for confusion-- or offense.

-Jason Cho

-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick Neeman

The dropdown menu is this:

- Choose Location -
United States
 -- Atlantic --
      Delaware