[IxDA Discuss] Best practices: on-load drop-down selection

[SPatrick at amig.com]

Good morning,

I'm looking for a best practice for a form heavy web application.  Each
page in the application contains a mix of text boxes, drop-downs, and radio
buttons.
Drop-downs are my main concern:  We have no consistent approach to whether
the drop-down is blank, or if it says --Select--, or if it contains the
first item in the drop-down (only works if the field is required)

While I have my own preference and opinion, is there a best practice for
this?

Thank you!

Susan Patrick
User Interface Designer
The Midland Company
(513) 947-6072

"Design is a process - an intimate collaboration between engineers,
designers, and clients." - Henry Dreyfuss, Industrial Designer


                                                                           
             Brian Williams                                                
             <lists.interactio                                             
             ndesigners at chroma                                          To 
             ticgray.com>              discuss at ixda.org                    
             Sent by:                                                   cc 
             discuss-bounces at l                                             
             ists.interactiond                                     Subject 
             esigners.com              [IxDA Discuss] Need Interaction     
                                       Designers as CI participants in the 
                                       SF/Bay Area                         
             09/15/2006 08:18                                              
             PM                                                            
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           




[Please voluntarily trim replies to include only relevant quoted material.]

Greetings IXDers,

I am looking for Interaction Designers to interview for an
independent project. I am interested what kind of documents you
produce and how you communicate your designs to product management,
developers or implementors.

i am particularly interested if you do any of the following

* You use a graphics or diagramming tool (Visio, Illustrator,
OmniGraffle, etc) to produce screen mockups or storyboards
* You use UI simulation software like iRise, Axure, Serenia Composer,
stpBA, Lucid Spec, or Intuitech, or any other comparable tool.
* You create UI specifications in some other interesting or novel
way, for instance entirely with paper and pencil etc...

* You work closely with developers to ensure that your designs are
implemented correctly.
* You don't get to work closely with developers and they must rely
only on your design documents.

Ideally I would like to conduct a Contextual Interview as you work or
if that is not doable, talk with you about a specific project that
you worked on recently.
I can assure you that my observations will be kept confidential and
only used to produce affinity, sequence, and cultural models that
can't be traced to the source interview. I will sign any NDA
documents necessary as well.

For your time I can offer good HCI karma and one the following:

* Lunch or Dinner
* A Gift Card for either Peet's, Starbucks, Amazon or Borders (your
pick).

If you are available, please respond with the following:

Name
Employer and location
Phone Number where best to reach you

Please describe your design process and a little about an interesting
recent project.

Thank you for your responses.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Brian Williams


________________________________________________________________
Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
List Guidelines ............ http://listguide.ixda.org/
List Help .................. http://listhelp.ixda.org/
(Un)Subscription Options ... http://subscription-options.ixda.org/
Announcements List ......... http://subscribe-announce.ixda.org/
Questions .................. lists at ixda.org
Home ....................... http://ixda.org/
Resource Library ........... http://resources.ixda.org



-----------------------------------------
CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT:
This e-mail transmission contains information that is intended to
be confidential.  It is intended only for the addressee named
above.  If you receive this e-mail in error, please do not read,
copy, or disseminate it.  If you are not the intended recipient,
any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of
this information is prohibited.   Please reply to the message
immediately by informing the sender that the message was
misdirected.  After replying, please erase it from your computer
system.  Your assistance in correcting this error is appreciated.