Here’s an old familiar friend – a simple usability mistake that many websites have long since addressed, but one that I still see from time to time.
When presenting users with a list of countries – for example as part of a form collecting the user’s shipping or billing address – it’s helpful to consider the geographic location of the primary audience and organize the list accordingly. For example…
example country drop-down list
The website from which this was taken caters primarily to American customers, but “United States of America” is located far, far down the list (more than 200 items down, in fact). This drop-down is a great lesson in world geography, but probably something of a nuisance for most users.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not ethnocentric enough to believe that “United States” always needs to be the first choice. Indeed, if the website’s audience is equally likely to come from any country in the world (a rare but valid situation) then organizing the list in this manner might be logical. Of course there are plenty of companies in the world who serve primarily an audience outside of the US (here is an example – note that on this website the US has been relegated to the “Rest of the world” category).
Though there are some notable exceptions most customers for any given website will reside mostly in just a handful of countries. For most e-commerce operations in the US and Canada for example, it’s likely that the US, Canada, and the UK represent the lion’s share of users. So placing these choices at the top of the country list is a significant improvement. Here’s an example of how this might look:
By placing three of the most likely choices at the very top of the list you save time for the majority of users – and in the case of a long list you avoid frustration.
A related point worth considering is that if all or nearly all of the customers are from a single country, it may make sense to use that choice as a default value in the drop-down.
A different but equally valid approach to country selection is to enable users to simply type the country; this can be combined with an auto-fill function that “guesses” the user’s intention based on the first few characters. This type of approach is gaining popularity on many websites, including travel sites like Hotels.com and Trip Advisor. Hotels.com goes one step further and suggests “popular searches” once the user clicks into the “Where are you going?” field, even before they begin to type.
There are numerous ways to enable users to make country selections quickly and easily, so be sure you’re not complicating what should otherwise be a very straightforward and quick choice for your users.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Good points, anything that can help users achieve what they want with minimal hassle is good. Ajax, auto-completing is a pleasurable experience.
In terms of keeping up to date with countries & terminology, is there a definitive list of countries that’s updated – that would be a useful resource.
Good question Adrian. Off the top of my head I don’t know, but I’ll look for one and will post it here as an addendum when I find it.
The definition of a country can be very controversial and have a lot of political implications. I typically leverage the list of United Nations member states.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Nations_member_states#Current_members