Appropriate Behavior of Text Box and Drop-Down?
Appropriate Behavior of Text Box and Drop-Down?
- Subject: Appropriate Behavior of Text Box and Drop-Down?
- From: Thomas Hopper <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 09:45:24 -0500
I have inherited an application that is only partially finished, and I need
to finish the remaining parts. There is one set of interface elements that
have me somewhat baffled as to implementing the "correct" behavior.
The application provides some functionality for doing unit conversions, such
as mm<->cm<->inch<->mils. What the application presents is a text box to
the left of a drop-down list. The text box contains the number (or
quantity) and the drop-down the unit.
There are two modes: one in which the text box is editable, and the other in
which the text box is not editable but the conversions are still allowed via
selection in the drop-down. The non-editable mode is provided to prevent
accidental user changes to the underlying data.
In the non-editable mode, the text box is grayed-out to indicate that it is
not editable, and is populated with a number from some source. The
drop-down to the right is editable and the appropriate unit is automatically
selected to match the number in the text box. The user may change the
selection in the drop-down and the text box will automatically update to
display the quantity in the newly selected units. For instance, if the
currently displayed quantity is "1" and the units are "inch," then the user
might select "mm" and see the quantity change to "25.4." Simple.
My problem arises in the editable mode. As I see it, there are two options:
(A) The user types in a quantity, then selects the appropriate units. At
that time, no conversion is applied to the quantity. The user is merely
entering information; not performing conversions. For instance, suppose
that the text field is blank and the units drop- down displays "inch." The
user types in "25.4" and selects "mm," and the result is "25.4 mm."
Switching back to the non-editable mode and changing the units from "mm" to
"inch" would result in the text field updating to "1." This behavior makes
sense from the perspective of reading and editing left-to-right.
(B) Whenever the user selects a different unit from the drop-down, the text
field is converted to the newly selected units. For instance, suppose that
the text field is blank and the units drop-down displays "inch." The user
types in "25.4" and selects "mm." The number in the text field is
immediately converted from 25.4 inch to 645.16 mm. Switching back to the
non-editable mode and changing the units from "mm" to "inch" would result in
the text field updating from "645.16" to "25.4" This behavior makes sense
from the perspective of keeping the behavior of the fields consistent across
modes by changing the drop-down always applies the conversion.
I'm not sure whether to go the route of (A) or to go the route of (B.) I'm
inclined to think that the best solution is to simply test each approach on
some users, but I'm not sure how to set up such a test or what metrics to
use...I simply don't have the experience.
Of course, this probably highlights a fault in the design, but there's not
much I can do about that right now.
Any suggestions or other guidance would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Tom Hopper
_______________________________________________
cocoa-dev mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives:
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/cocoa-dev
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.