I agree that it is rare that so many options all at once would be necessary, but one example comes to mind. On some job-seeking sites they ask something like "what regions would you like to work in". Then there is a multi-select box with entries like 

Canada, any
Canada, Maritimes, any
Canada, Maritimes, Newfoundland
Canada, Maritimes, Newfoundland, St. John's region
...

[download]

and so on. I remember it being well-ordered enough that it wasn't difficult to find any particular region, but there were far too many options to make into checkboxes. The fact that any number of regions could be selected, as well as the fact that there were a couple of levels of precision, meant that it would be difficult to redo it (by grouping) in two pages. It probably would have taken three, and that's more than any single question should take. There was a similar situation for the 'what fields of work to search' question, and if there are too many questions on a form that take two or more pages to complete... well, that's no good.

In a situation like that I feel that multi-select lists are justified. I do agree, however, that such cases are rare, and for the vast majority of forms checkboxes are just fine.


LAI
:eof

In reply to Re^3: multi-select html forms by LAI
in thread multi-select html forms by Anonymous Monk

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