Big Drop Downs. or other options?

Too big for a drop down - are there are other options?

[Onders]

I'm looking for some opinions and user perspective on the acceptable size of a drop down. I've got a list of universities - around 220 odd that are quite difficult to break up.. obviously 220 is too big for a drop down (or is it?!), but does anyone know other feasible options. Was thinking about a some kind of predictive text, or some similar search of options.. (a search engine?!)
Any thoughts and opinions would be much appreciated! Thanks

[eelixduppy]

220 doesn't seem too large. I would just have some sort of ordering of the options, maybe alphabetically, this way it's easier to find a known option.

[Onders]

From a user perspective do you think they wouldn't mind scrolling down such a big list? The ordering is a good idea point though and something I would definitely do..
Out of curiousity what do you think is too large - or what is the largest you have seen?
Thanks

[jomaxx]

IMO it's manageable, but I wouldn't have the form auto-advance to the selected page. Too many times the user is going to bail and get redirected to some random page they're not interested in.

It might help to give them a hint that if they press a letter while looking at the drop-down list, they will jump to that spont in the list.

Also I wouldn't have that as your only navigation option, for usability and also for search engines. Surely you can also allow users the option to drill down alphabetically, by region, maybe by type of school or specialty if that's feasible.

[Onders]

Thanks Jomaxx - this is not something that is going to auto advance, its data that admin are going to be collecting. No need to take search engines into consideration therefore. Effectively we want to know where the user (in the registration process) is studying. Do you think giving them option for different methods is best... e.g. through a small group of locations and then drilling down?

[jomaxx]

I was thinking navigation rather than form-filling. You might still want to give some thought to making it as simple as possible, because if the user has to look more than a second or two for their university, they might simply choose anything at random in order to get past that field.

Ever see those Javascripts where you fill out dropdown A, and dropdown B is immediately refreshed to contain only the valid corresponding entries? I don't know how you do it (Ajax?), but it's super user-friendly.

You might also consider setting default values using geotargeting to get users started. Or even check the IP address against known university IP blocks. It depends how concerned you are about data quality. Me, I'm very hung up on that; if you're not collecting accurate data then what's the point?

[Onders]

jomaxx - I totally agree! Thanks for that.
What are your opinions on predictive form filling or writing a word and then options containing that word come up, and the user can just select the relavant one..