Country Selection on Web Forms: A Comparison of Dropdown Menus, Radio Buttons and Text Field with Autocomplete
Many forms on the web include obligatory country fields. Usually country form fields are implemented using a long drop down menu. This preliminary study set out to investigate whether the typical country drop down menu is as efficient as common practices indicate. A controlled within groups experiment with N 17 participants was conducted comparing radio buttons, drop down lists and a text field with autocomplete. The results show that the mean time to select country by inputting the prefix of the country in a text field with autocomplete was the fastest although not significantly faster than the drop down menu. However, both were significantly faster to use than radio buttons. The results support the choice of mechanisms used on some websites where country selection is implemented with a multi mode input control that can be used either as a drop down menu or by inputting the country prefix according to the users' preferences.
2020 14th International Conference on Ubiquitous Information Management and Communication (IMCOM)