Componant list on enter_bug.cgi

[timeless]

Dave Williss wrote on 5/16/06 2:58 PM:
> On enter_bug.cgi,  why are the Component list and Version list a
> scrolled list 5 high instead of being a combo box?

On 6/28/06, David Miller <justdave at bugzilla.org> wrote:
> Because there's no combo box available in the standard HTML Forms
> feature set?  If other sites have them it's probably a javascript hack.

Actually, Dave Williss was rightfully flamed for the wrong word. But
he meant dropdown single select. Which is used in a number of places
in the UI.

One very important thing to remember though, is that the drop down
widgets are really very very painful to use for sizable lists.
Especially since you get terrible hinting about what might be in the
list.

Your average user can figure out from:

OS: [ Windows XP        |v]
That there are other OS's in the list and that he probably doesn't care.

Note that you can't have a dropdown with *nothing* selected, whereas a
select box starts that way, so you can easily force people to actually
pick a component.

The alternatives are:

1. Component: [ ----------------- |v]

2. Component: [ Please Pick a Component |v]

Both of these are *terrible* UIs, on average the user has no idea that
they actually *must* pick something and that the form can't *guess*
the right value.

Note: any replies to this thread are likely to be anonymized into my
blog, if you don't like this, then you probably shouldn't be writing
email since the email archives are publicly available anyway. (If you
really want credit/blame for comments that in my blog, you may specify
as such, but in general I think most people find being anonymized
considerably better.)

Ignoring the first problem I've diagrammed, consider that you have:

Component: [ General |v]

That seems reasonable, right? why should a user bother looking through the list.

<use notepad or an equivalent for art beyond this point>
Compare with:
           .__________________.
Component: | Administration |^|
           | Attachments    |||
           | bugzilla.org   | |
           | Importing Bugs | |
           | Exporting Bugs | |
           | Moving Bugs    | |
           |________________|v|

The user can clearly see that the option they have selected isn't
really the one they want because one of the other options they see
seems *better*. And ideally they'll choose it. Or maybe one of the
options sounds familiar and reading a few more gives them an idea that
they think they can find a better option in the list.

The space cost of 4 extra rows is well worth the savings in bugs filed
with whatever useless defaults the fields offer.

Note that Platform/OS in Bugzilla are generally correctly guessed.
Severity of normal is perfectly fine, the default targetmilestone
specified by the admin for the product should be a good default (and
if it isn't, that's the admin's fault). And the initial state of
either Unconfirmed if you are not allowed to filed confirmed bugs or
New (if you are) are all perfectly reasonable defaults and can almost
always be left alone.