[IxDA Discuss] Users ability with slider controls

[Tim Minor]

I dug about a bit after posting and came across Kayak and some other
sites. A few of them seem to have implemented sliders fairly
successfully and I agree that Kayak's tools feel pretty useful.

Yahoo is also experimenting with them in their new Mindset search
tool (http://mindset.research.yahoo.com/) and ShopSmart
(http://shopping.yahoo.com/smartsort/) and Amazon with their Diamond
Search tool (mentioned by Robert H above).

I'm not yet convinced that Mindset makes much sense - how do I know
where in the scale between 'shopping' and 'research' I need to
be? I guess the results are going to be key as always.

But in most of these cases the job of the slider is pretty advanced.
All I'm asking users to do is rate a product between one and ten
which I _hope_ is a much simpler task. (I'm reassured by Barbara's
findings that sliders were easily set.) The sliders I'm proposing
make up a significant portion of the page so hopefully they'll be
seen.

As well as having numbers on a graduated scale, I'm planning on
presenting the user with an updating number representing their vote.
I think this a requirement. Is there anything else that you consider
a must-have?

I just have a feeling that it's more satisfactory to use a slider
than poke about at radio controls or drop-downs.

Many thanks for comments so far!


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Posted from the new ixda.org
http://gamma.ixda.org/discuss?post=22044