In what scenarios can i use an auto-suggest textbox?

Question

I have a list of brand names for a particular product in the db. I can either display it on the screen using a drop down or and auto-suggest textbox.

I love the user experience of the auto-suggest textbox. But, is it right to use it here?

I would also want to know the best scenario to use it?

Answer 1

I think it depends on the number of items you need to display. If there are only a few, it gives hardly any advantage. But when there are many items, you can use it to filter out a lot of items, until there are only a few left. This makes finding the right item easier.

Answer 2

The Auto-Suggest textbox should be used when the user will be entering in a new piece of data MOST of the time... and the dropdown box should be used when the user will be entering repeated data MOST of the time.

Answer 3

Can you offer both? One of the products I worked on had a drop down list of brand names but allowed the user to type free text as well. The drop down list would narrow as you typed characters.

EDIT:

This was using Java: JComboBox.setEditable(true) with some additional fiddling if I remember right.