Recently, a Cre8asite member asked about the consequences of changing their interface design. They are looking at making a transition into “Web 2.0″ and AJAX by replacing their old, outdated select inputs (or “drop-down” boxes, if you prefer) with fancy auto-suggesting text inputs.

But they’re a little bit worried. Although this seems like a logical choice, there may well be some consequences! How might a user react to a radical change in the basic functionality of a site?

Confusion

At first glance, if you’re accustomed to making a selection from a drop-down box, being confronted with a text input could be a bit disconcerting. In this particular case, the drop down was a product list. Do you actually know the names of your own products? Can you assume that others will? Perhaps your users need the little reminder they get from seeing their product listed.

You can prevent this problem: tell your users about the change, and explain it. It won’t resolve the whole problem, of course. After all, there are plenty of people who never RTFM, no matter how hard it is to avoid. But don’t hide the information: don’t bury it in fine print, don’t conceal it with an obscure icon: state it in plain text on the form.

Avoidance

Not knowing what to do with the new interface, what percentage of users will explore the new interface and learn it? What percentage will abandon it immediately in search of some other solution? In this case, it seemed like the customers were pretty committed to the site — I don’t know exactly what it was, but it does seem something like an inventory control service or something to that effect. The customers can’t just abandon the company. But they can abandon the site. If you suddenly find yourself barraged with questions which used to be solved through your website, you may have that situation.

Sometimes users will avoid a new interface because they are more comfortable with something familiar. And, for many people, picking up the telephone and asking somebody a question is still more familiar than AJAX. I know — unbelievable, isn’t it?

Providing choice for the user is important. If the backend of the interface still works in fundamentally the same way, is it absolutely necessary to enforce use of the new system? AJAX is an unfamiliar beast for many users — perhaps you should not only provide a solid fallback solution for users without JavaScript, but make that fallback solution mimic your previous interface AND give your users the option to choose to use it.

Giving your users a choice in how to use your site can help empower them. Rather than just wrenching out the previous system from underfoot, take it in stages: implement one change at a time, ask for user feedback, and give the option to fallback to the previous system as long as you can. (Sometimes you can’t; c’est la vie.) But most of all provide assistance to your users in adapting to the new system. Change can be brutal, and is frequently very unpopular. But the unpopularity of a new interface may come as much from a lack of communication as from any actual problem with the new system.

It’s an unfortunate thing that the member who posted this question hasn’t returned to follow up. I’m curious to see what kinds of decisions get made!