Missing Features

Take a look at the search site for the Ballston Common Mall. Can you spot the usability glitch?

It’s the search control for “Show a category.” You have to select a category from the drop down AND hit the radio button for “Show a category.”

A quick hallway usability test would show that most users will miss selecting the radio button for “Show a category” and just pick a category in the drop down menu and click search.

There isn’t a technical reason to require a radio button for selecting a category and there isn’t a compelling interface reason for forcing the user to select a radio button. It’s just bad design.

One lazy programmer builds a badly thought-out search form and Ballston Commons Mall will see a few less customers. (More proof of a lazy programmer: they used radio button without LABEL tags around the button labels.)

Trackback URI |