How do I create a natural UI to let the user choose an unlimited value? Take for example, Bittorrent's bandwidth configuration:
Arguably, putting 0 for unlimited is not natural. Some people might interpret 0 kB/s as not downloading at all - quite the opposite of unlimited. Yes, I know there are instructions saying that 0 specifies unlimited download, but the great Steve Krug says no one should be forced to read instructions.
I'm running into a similar problem in designing my video transcoding website. I have a slider, whose value ranges from 320x240 to 1920x1080 to original. I think, currently, the original resolution is hard to discover. Does the user really know that scrubbing the slider to the right end will trigger the original setting?
Answer
The option of unlimited could be indicated by a simple checkbox which, when checked, disables the other field. This could be located in close proximity to the original field so its association is obvious. The control now becomes a coupled pair of controls that act as one.
In the Bittorrent example in the question it would be positioned inside the field group border.
For the Resolution slider example a similar approach could be used with the check box being labelled Original and when checked, as well as being disabled, the field holding the resolution value gets set to whatever original is, so the user knows.
Another idea is to have a marker positioned above the slider where the value of the control would be equal to original as the slider passes that spot. When that position is hit the marker could change colour to serve as an indicator. This would be harder to implement though.
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