We have a drop-down menu for the user to switch between several accounts or profiles, and these accounts are identified by their legal entity name. There's a higher than random chance that many of the names for a given user would be very similar, as in the following:
- Proactive Plumbing Inc.
- Proactive Plumbing QLD Division P/L
- Proactive Plumbing New South Wales
- Proactive Plumbing, Bedrooms, and Kitchens
- Proactive Plumbing Workers Pension Fund New South Wales
The problem is that we don't want to show the full length name in the drop-down menu, as it could become unwieldy in width. Similarly, we can't simply truncate or elide on some blind rule.
Any suggestions?
Answer
Possibility I
Why don't you use title attribute so when user pauses mouse cursor on such item, a hint/tooltip would display the whole text. This can also be used for a custom tooltip solution that would display tooltip immediately when element is too wide.
Possibility II
Second possibility is to use custom drop down solution with shifting element content. So when a wider (by content) element is paused on it would automatically get scrolled to the right to reveal all content. This is somehow similar to phone phonebooks which had names wider than screen with could deliver. Names simply got scrolled to the right.
Outcome?
The first one is of course faster for users to use. And using some custom tooltip solution it could as well mean that positioning of the tooltip may be crucial to usability to make things as fast to use as possible.
The second on seems somehow more natural, but depending on the text length and shifting speed it may take some time to get to the unique part of the content.
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