Ask Eric: Questions & Answers

November 27, 2006 – submitted by Tony Gullaci of Vancouver, Canada

Question: Hi Dr Schaffer. We are currently designing a Web form that asks a series of questions with yes/no answers. This form would be used infrequently by our external customers.

In your opinion what would be the best control to capture the user's choice? Our team can't agree on a particular control, half would like to use two radio buttons with Yes and No with no default set. The other half would like to use a Y/N drop-down list with a blank option.

Eric's response: Eric's response: Generally with a Yes/No item I would like to see it converted into a CHECK BOX.

So...

    Do you want Premium Service? Yes No

becomes:

    Premium Service

Other than that, the radio button is clearly better then the drop down. It makes the choices obvious without having to click to see them. It also take one less click.

I generally try to fight the idea that forcing the user to make a click to choose is useful. It seems that some court cases have forced the issue, so you can't make "accept the agreement" a default selection. But I don't think that actually gets anyone extra to read the agreement.

October 4, 2006 – submitted by Patricia Burns of NY, USA

Question: Are there any user interface standards for when to "auto-tab"? That is, in fields where data entered does not exceed the maximum length, the user would naturally have to tab to the next field. But when the max has been entered (e.g., in a date field), is it considered easier on the user to keep the focus in that field or move it to the next data entry field? Is there a standard for radio buttons, Y/N, check boxes, etc? Thanks.

Eric's response: Yep.

Generally do NOT use auto-tab. It forces the user to check to see if he/she needs to press tab after every field. Because the user does not know which fields will fill completely and therefore not require a tab. It is far better to always require pressing tab, rather then having to SOMETIMES press tab.

The only exception to this is when you are moving between segments of an entry WITHIN a masked field. For example sometimes what is seen as a single field may be actually several fields (like a phone number in segments). Then moving between segments should skip. It is also much better if backspace moves backwards through all segments.

July 27, 2006 – submitted by Ravindra Papineni of San Antonio, TX

Question: As a user, I like the drop down lists that go to the selected page, after merely selecting it. My mind just expects to go the selected page without doing another click. On some sites (including Amazon.com!), I have to click on "go" button AFTER I selected my list. I feel this later method is not quite intuitive. Do you agree?

Eric's response: I disagree twice.

First and most importantly, if you are a professional usability engineer you will NOT design referencing YOUR personal preferences. You will design based on the literature and models in the field. When you design based on your personal preferences you are designing based on a sample of ONE and designing based on a highly atypical sample (you are not an average target user).

Second, the normal expected behavior of a dropdown list is to make a selection, but NOT take an action.

May 17, 2006 – submitted by Tony Gullaci of BC, Canada

Question: Hi Dr. Schaffer,

Your advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm currently involved with a project that will display information based on the criteria selected by the user. The user however will need to select from a list of fifty options.

My approach would be to ask the user a series of questions (wizard) to narrow the number of choices available to them.

Is this a good approach?

Eric's response: It depends a lot on the response time of the query. In general we want to make it quick and easy to try another selection. So we build search criteria fields right above the results. You can modify the fields and just pull up the results. Picking from 50 choices is hardly earth shattering and I would try to make it possible to select and look... without stepping through a wizard.

February 16, 2006 – submitted by Emilya Naymark of Garden City, NY

Question: I am part of a creative / usability team working on re-designing a number of member-oriented e-commerce Web sites. We just found out that the most frequently used page on all our sites is the log-in error page (forgot user name, forgot password, etc.) Is there a way we can make this a smoother experience for our members?

Eric's response: Yes. The login is a very critical issue, and there is a lot that can be done. Of course, all usability recommendations must be considered in the light of security issues.

Consider using an email ID instead of a user name. The email ID is always unique, but also hard to forget.

Avoid making the password sensitive to case. Many users have their caps/lock on by accident. If your security staff push you on this I have an algorithm (patent applied for) that is a compromise, solving the caps/lock problem but keeping almost all of the extra security afforded by a case-sensitive password.

Avoid putting restrictions on the password. Many people have just one, or a few passwords that they commonly use. If you put a restriction (like must contain a number) that forces them to create a new password, it is a burden and is likely to be forgotten.

It is good to use cookies to allow the user to keep the login on a machine so the login need not be repeated.

Finally, try to have a "forgot password" option, with an easy way to get the password reissued and sent to the user.