Choosing Input Field Formats for Use by Sales Personnel

Abstract

Two input fields for customer information, date of birth and state of residence, used by sales personnel (i.e., customer representatives) were examined. For date of birth, a single text box, a set of three separated text boxes, and a set of three dropdown lists were compared. For the state field, a text box for state abbreviations, a dropdown list containing state abbreviations, and a dropdown list containing full names of the states were compared. For date of birth, no differences in error rates were found, but both text box formats resulted in faster completion times than the dropdown format. For state, the abbreviation text box resulted in shorter completion times than either dropdown format. While no difference in error rates was found when the actual state to be input was “easy” or familiar to the participant, the full name dropdown list did result in lower error rates than the two text box formats when the state was “difficult” or unfamiliar.