I'm about to develop an application that will be used by revisers to compile the errors they find while reviewing a translation. The application will consist of a simple form in which they will have to enter some informations about the error.
One of the informations that they need to enter is the type of error. The error are separated in 7 categories with 4 to 8 error types per category. Since the users will need to fill this form frequently I'd like to make it easy and fast to use. So I'm pondering how should I allow them to select an error type.
The trivial way to do this is to present to dropdown lists, one for each level. This methods as multiples drawbacks :
- It requires 4 clicks to select an error type
- The user can't see the options before he opens the list
- The user need to aim and click on relatively small options
Is there any better/creative alternatives that would allow the user to choose an option rapidly/easily?
Answer
I would say that for repetitive tasks, one of the top priorities is to provide really quick access to the users' most recent and most common items and not to have any small target areas, and that you should design for speed, user inaccuracy and aim to reduce repetition.
I was further pondering this problem of quickly and easily assigning a report to a 2 level category/type structure and had the following thought which could reduce the category assignment process to a single drag operation. The only thing is - I'm not sure I've seen this pattern anywhere else - but does that make it bad. I have no information to go on as to its usability for repetitive tasks in practice - but you asked for creative alternatives so here you go.
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