[IxDA Discuss] Better name for "Seeking" in lists

[josh]

All,

I would say it depends on the results of the interaction.  If people are
typing and the list "scrolls" to a matching entry, I've referred to that
interaction as "jumping in lists" in the past.  Within this type of
interaction you see different variations:
  "Single letter jumping" seen in a Motorola RAZR phonebook where the list
will only match the first letter.
  "Multiple letter jumping" would progressively jump to a match based on all
the letters that are entered.

You could generalize to say "character" rather than letter.

I think of Auto-Completes as being a slightly different thing...because they
(can or tend) to be about suggestions vs matching something within a defined
list.
A similar behavior, but a different variation is sometimes seen in "sliders"
where you jump to a point in a defined range.
If people are typing and the list "filters" to matching entries I would
consider that a different interaction as well.

On 12/11/06, Shep McKee <shep.mckee at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I agree that 'auto-complete' is the best umbrella term, especially in
> the context of web apps. Intellisense (Microsoft) and Content Assist
> (Eclipse Foundation) are two terms used to describe these patterns in
> desktop development apps, although with true Intellisense/Content
> Assist there's often much more than just simple auto-complete provided.
>
> There's often 2 parts to these patterns - I've seen either or both used:
> - An auto-complete textbox: The most probable choice based on the
> substring the user haas typed is presented in a textbox. As the user
> enters more of the string, The algorithm for "most probable" is often
> context dependent, eg: 'begins with' or 'contains'
> - A dynamically filtered dropdown: The list of other possible
> choices, reduced dynamically by the substring the user has typed.
> Again - the algorithm can often be context dependent.
>
> On the subject of context: We designed an "auto-complete drop-
> down" (our term) for a task where the user had to pick from a very
> large set of terms. It was much more efficient than the cascading
> drop-down list[1], but not as much as we had hoped. We discovered
> that many users preferred to use (both formal & informal)
> abbreviations and acronyms, often without ever knowing the original
> term. So we built a synonym ring to tie all the terms together with
> the most common abbreviations and acronyms. The new control now
> provided matches based on the substring that the user entered, but
> also presented matches, in a separate section of the drop-down, based
> on the synonym ring.
>
> [1] Like a drop-down used to pick your state or country (argh!)
>
> On Dec 11, 2006, at 12:49 PM, Lorne Trudeau wrote:
> > "Auto Complete" makes sense to me.
> > http://com1.devnet.scd.yahoo.com/ypatterns/pattern.php?
> > pattern=autocompl
> > ete
>
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