h12

Drill-down options at a glance

Site Genre: Pattern Group h

magnify imageFigureH12.1 Yahoo! Autos makes good use of drill-down options to specify car make and model.

Background

It’s important to give visitors to your Web site easier ways to enter information into CLEAR FORMS (H10) when option lists are large but limited. An alternative to the PREDICTIVE INPUT (H11) pattern is one that provides drill-down options.

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PROBLEM

Specifying a particular option in a long list can be daunting.

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SOLUTION

magnify image FigureH12.5 Drill-down options allow your customers to quickly pick interdependent options from multiple pick lists or hierarchical menus without having to wade through all of the possible combinations of options.

When you have too many hierarchically organized items to fit in a single pick list, you can create drill-down options using multiple, hierarchical pick lists or menus. If you use multiple pick lists, deactivate the secondary and tertiary pick lists until the customer selects a parent pick list option. If you use hierarchical menus, configure the secondary and tertiary menus to stay visible for a second or two even if customers move the mouse away from the parent option.

Other Patterns to Consider

Secondary menus can be loaded when the original page loads, or if the lists are too numerous or too long, try FAST-LOADING CONTENT (L6) dynamically as it is needed. If you have many items, consider organizing them into a hierarchy. Although it does not address the problem directly, the HIERARCHICAL ORGANIZATION (B3) pattern offers some ways of making an effective hierarchy. Drill-down options are an alternative to PREDICTIVE INPUT (H11) for making CLEAR FORMS (H10) easier to fill out. Choose the best option based on how many items will be in the pick list and how dynamic the items are.

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