I have a "products" table in a database. It is used to populate a dropdown list on a website.
Currently the list is being output alphabetically, but my client has suggested that if he signs Coca Cola as a customer, they might want to put "Vanilla Coke" as the product on the top of the list, followed by "Coke", then have the rest sort alphabetically.
This seems like a poor usability decision to me... any second opinions?
If it makes sense to the user and they want it. It would at least be worth trying.
They may be asking for something that is most commonly used to be always at the top. In this scenario it would be a very good usability decision.
Another alternative may be to not change the order but change the default selection (to one in the middle of the list).
Depends how they are using the form. If they are going to use Vanilla coke a lot it makes sense to have it near the top.
You see the same idea quite a lot in country dropdowns on sites. A site mostly used in the USA might have USA as the first item.
Mind you perhaps the issue is that you have too many items in a dropdown and need to look at other alternatives (AJAX autosuggest being one approach)?
It depends on the nature of your web site. If Coca Cola people mostly pick their own products, that's a perfectly fine decision. I'd even go further and separate Coca Cola's product from the rest with a whitespace/horizontal line:
____________________
Select Product: | Vanilla Coke | + | <- This is kinda' dropdown
| Coke |
| -------------|
| A Product |
| X Product |
----------------
I think this depends. If an item is chosen more than another (say 80% of the time), and it is burried in a list 5 or 6 items from the top, users very quickly will get tired of scrolling through a list to find this item. Putting it at the top of a list may be more 'user friendly'.
You need to weigh up the decrease in intuition, against the actual use.
It makes a lot of sense to me. I happen to deal with several lookup lists which are ordered first by an SequenceID, then alphabetically. It's implementation is easy: simple add an SequenceID to the record and sort first on SequenceID, then by name. You could even group items together by SequenceID.
Actually, what your customer wants is having items in custom groups, based upon their importance. That makes a lot of sense, especially when dealing with long lists where the popular items are located down the list. It is extremely useful!
"This seems like a poor usability decision to me... any second opinions?"
Can you ask your users? It's their opinion that matters. Us geeks don't talk to them enough!
What about having Coke in there twice? Once at the top where the user may find it quick, and once alphabetically with the rest of the products?
This avoids the pain of scrolling down and hunting, only to be unable to find what you were looking for.