RE: Search fields

Steve Green wrote:
> I ask people why they didn’t use the dropdown results... They type and submit the form so fast that either the dropdown doesn’t have time to appear, or it appears but isn’t announced before they submit the form. I’m not sure there’s a way to fix this, but I am also not sure it even needs to be fixed.

Just to note that I agree with that conclusion for searches with drop-down/autocomplete that defaults to a standard search page if you submit what is typed in.

However, I’ve come across similar looking widgets that default to the first item if you just press enter, taking you to the item page rather than a listing page.  That can be confusing because you don’t know there are other results. The drop-down is far more important in that case.

A Gov.uk site probably wouldn’t even think about doing that, but I’ve come across that approach on some commercial sites.

Cheers,

-Alastair