Afforadance on Auto-Complete Input boxes

On 6/30/06, Blake Scarbrough wrote:
>
> Does anyone have any good affordance/scent on an auto complete input box
> (as in google suggest http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&complete=1)
>
>
Blake, I'd love to know the same. In my opinion, the autocomplete input
boxes have a very low discoverability because they're basically just text
fields with added JavaScript.

Google's interface has an added line of text trying to explain and to make
it easier to discover the _hidden_ functionality: "As you type, Google will
offer suggestions. Use the arrow keys to navigate the results. Learn
more<http://labs.google.com//intl/en/suggestfaq.html>
"

Is this enough? Hardly. I would like to see a general consensus around how
to visually indicate autocomplete fields in a way that makes it intuitively
clear what functionality is hidden in the field.

Back in January, I wrote about "live search" in user interfaces, with
examples from Google Suggest, GMail, Apple Spotlight, Windows Vista and
more. But neither of the ones I looked at had any visual indication of the
fields that could indicate that the field was different from an ordinary
text field.

Here are the two articles digging into "live search"/autocomplete:
http://justaddwater.dk/2006/01/26/live-search-explained/
http://justaddwater.dk/2006/01/25/windows-vista-setting-new-standards-for-find-as-you-type-searching/

Please let me know, if you discover anything else in this direction.

/Jesper

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Jesper Rønn-Jensen
Capgemini Danmark A/S
+45 23 73 62 20 (Mobile)
www.capgemini.com (Website)
http://justaddwater.dk/ (weblog)