Feature idea: support conditionally revealing inputs when 'other' selected

[edwardhorsford]

My service uses quite a few autocompletes with the 'show all values' option to act like better selects.

Most users will pick from one of the options, but we also need to support them typing something else. Although the autocomplete is an input, the current styling means that users are unlikely to just type something different.

This what we prototyped and plan to build:

Note if this were the only thing on a page we'd probably just use radios with a conditional field - but for our service this is just one of several questions on the page. And the other option should be a rarely used thing - the autocompletes have otherwise tested well (with some known issues).

[NickColley]

Have you considered the small checkboxes + conditional reveals in https://design-system.service.gov.uk/components/checkboxes

Might strike the balance of higher density stuff on a page and mean you dont need this extra feature.

[edwardhorsford]

@NickColley thanks - yes we have. From my testing, small checkboxes have don't have that large an impact on vertical height. Visually they're smaller - but the hit are is kept large so they still take up quite a bit of space.

In the context of our page, I don't think radios would work - we have multiple questions on one page (this is an admin system) and I don't think moving all autocompletes to radios would be viable.

[edwardhorsford]

Just as an example: this checkbox group uses small checkboxes - it's about 90% the height of regular checkboxes. The percentage would be a bit higher if there were more options, but not much.

[timpaul]

Thanks for your suggestion @edwardhorsford :-)

We’re prioritising bug fixes over new feature development for the accessible autocomplete this quarter, so unfortunately we won’t be able to take on this work.