A b s t r a c t

Authors

Dennis Cheng    (decumcp@wam.umd.edu)
Andrew Ellis      (ajellis@wam.umd.edu)
Roman Shapiro (romans@wam.umd.edu)

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Abstract

    This study investigates the selection of an item from two styles of list boxes. The drop-down box and multi-column box are two user interface components that are frequently used in the Windows 95/NT 4.0 user interface. Twenty-four subjects, all with previous experience with the Windows 95/NT 4.0 user interface, were presented with drop-down and multi-column lists each containing 10, 30, and 50 elements. Each subject had to select a specified item from each list presented. The order of list presentation was balanced among the subjects. The list items were sorted alphabetically and were familiar to subjects.

    The purpose of the experiment was to find out which interface – a single screen with drop-down lists or multiple screens with a full-size, multi-column list on each screen – produces faster item selection and lower error rates.

    Our results indicate that the multi-column list approach yields a faster user response time as well as reduced error rates. Our data also suggests that these performance increases are more substantial as the number of elements in the list increase.

updated 5.9.98