usage of AutoComplete feature in modern GUIs

Question

I am usual software developer (not Usability specialist); so it is interesting for me to know opinion of usability professionals about the following question. I would like to know: how often usability specialists recommend using feature AutoComplete (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autocomplete) in modern GUIs? Has presence of the AutoComplete in GUI become a 'standard' to the moment?

Answer 1

Look at discussion on http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=79272&type=member&item=49087267&qid=3ed96f17-25c4-4cac-b92d-69c37925f5bc&goback=%2Egna_79272; it is devoted to the Auto-Complete feature too. Some exampkles and ideas were written there.

Answer 2

I've implemented autocomplete on several different projects with user base ranging from 200 to 500 and have collected feedback on this feature. From my experience, users love it as long as it's fast.

My favorite control to do autocomplete is jQuery's: http://docs.jquery.com/Plugins/autocomplete

It doesn't start filtering until shortly after the user is done typing. This is important because you don't want to flood the server w/ too many ajax requests.

• With Microsoft SharePoint 2007 I replaced the out-of-the-box search with a live search that does autocomplete. This is probably the most used feature in the site
• I created a few "portlets" with large amounts of grid data and I use a built in quick find that filters the data for the user. These are also used quite a bit

One other thing to mention is I'm not too certain how 508 compliant it is so you may want to provide an alternative so the page w/ autocomplete can fail gracefully without sacraficing the user experience

Answer 3

This depends a lot on the overall design. Autocomplete increases usability only in some cases, in other it may be inappropriate or distracting. The only way to know in your particular case is to conduct usability testing.