Wednesday, July 8, 2015

guidelines - Should I use a dropdown with only one item if in future this control might have more options?



We have a drop down selection that will only have 1 option. In the future this drop down may expand for some and not for others. Would it be better to develop it now as a drop down knowing that this may include more options in the future.


Is it better to hide or show future functionality?


We can't agree on the best practice.



Answer



In this situation, I would not use a drop down until you need to.


Using a drop down with one option will be annoying to some degree because people will click on it and expect more choices but not find any. Also, people will be trained to not click on that drop down because its 'useless'. You'll have to somehow retrain them to look for the new options if/when you add them in the future.


Alternatively, simply adding a drop down when more options exist shouldn't confuse people. In fact, it sounds like a natural way to indicate that additional options have been added to the software.


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