[Sigia-l] HTML Multiple Select Widget

[Anders Ramsay]

On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 15:00:38 -0800, Patrick Neeman
<pat at nexisinteractive.com> wrote:
> Here's the details:
> 
> We have a bunch of web forms that have criteria for reporting.
> 
> A few items have the possibility for selecting multiple items, i.e. A,
> B, and D out of a list of A, B, C, D. We also have a second list where
> the options are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, for example, and 1, 2, and 4 can
> be selected.
> 
> We also have some items where mutliple selction can be made out of a
> list of about 50, and that's where multiple select using a list box is
> pretty much unavoidable.
> 
> The forms aren't necessarily long -- usually no more than a few options
> -- but we have a team member that is fully convinced that everything
> should be those multiple select list boxes.
> 
> And I haven't actually spec'ed one out (or worked somewhere where we
> did) in a long, long time -- we always used checkboxes because of the
> myriad of usability issues with those multiple select list boxes.
> 
> I want to back up some of my opinion with actual research.

There is nothing here that I'm seeing that would justify going with a
listbox, including the list of 50 items
(http://www.epitonic.com/radio.jsp uses that many on their page, and
while not the best designed page in the world works pretty well)
Remember, multiple selections in a listbox requires that a user
understand that they need to use the shift and/or ctrl key (and if you
think they're going to read your instructions to do this, think again)

Also, using research to prop up your case is all good and well, but
it's unlikely that whatever research you find will correlate precisely
to your particular situation.  Best might be to let your developer see
a non-technical user try figure out now to make multiple selection in
a listbox, and realize that it's not as obvious to others as it might
be to him.
Another problem with listboxes is the cognitive overhead that it
imposes on the user, such as having to remember anything they've
selected that goes out of view due to scrolling.

In addition, there are ways that you can allow for scaling the
checkbox list without creating visual bloat, but also not taxing
cognitive overhead, such as using expanding and collapsing layers for
checkbox list subgroups, that summarize what has been selected when
collapsed.

-Anders