Understanding expectations
I was placing a textbook order a while back and one of the drop-down menus seemed to present more confusion than necessary.
At first glance, the drop-down seemed to display the common alphabetical order (Astronomy … English … Philosophy); however, looking at it more closely, I noticed something rather curious. It used a kind of two-tiered alphabetical order where the word, Department functioned as a kind of prefix that was then followed by the specific department name (e.g., Dept of Economics, Dept of English, Dept of Linguistics).
In an ordinary alphabetical order, Engineering, of course, would precede English, however, in this drop-down, it appears before Engineering. In this configuration, English is linked to the Department prefix, while Engineering appears later because it’s devoid of that prefix.
While I’m guessing the rationale for this configuration is because most university org charts position English as a Department (e.g., inside the School of Arts & Sciences) and Engineering as a School, it still seems that a simple straightforward, alpha order would make it easier and more efficient. In terms of interface design and usability, this gets at the issue of a user’s expectations. Does the faculty placing the textbook order expect the drop-down to emulate their university’s org chart (assuming it does), or does she expect an ordinary alpha-sorted list?
