Country Selection on Web Forms: A Comparison of Dropdown Menus, Radio Buttons and Text Field with Autocomplete

Abstract

Many forms on the web include obligatory country fields. Usually country form-fields are implemented using a long drop-down menu. This preliminary study set out to investigate whether the typical country drop-down menu is as efficient as common practices indicate. A controlled within-groups experiment with N = 17 participants was conducted comparing radio buttons, drop down lists and a text field with autocomplete. The results show that the mean time to select country by inputting the prefix of the country in a text field with autocomplete was the fastest although not significantly faster than the drop-down menu. However, both were significantly faster to use than radio buttons. The results support the choice of mechanisms used on some websites where country selection is implemented with a multi-mode input control that can be used either as a drop-down menu or by inputting the country prefix according to the users' preferences.