Yesterday I was reviewing an HTML form with my UX colleague, and he said we should change all our <select multiple> elements to collections of checkboxes instead since selecting multiple things with it is just too unintuitive for desktop users.<p>Shift+click to select consecutive multiple<p>Ctrl+click to select non-consecutive multiple<p>Shift+Up/Down to select consecutive multiple with keyboard<p>Ctrl+Up/Down then release Ctrl, then Space to select non-consecutive multiple with Keyboard<p>(for mac of course replace Ctrl with Cmd)<p>This surprised me since it is a built-in html standard element, but kind of makes sense after thinking about it. What do you think? In contrast I do like how it renders on mobile, where it basically does render as a series of checkboxes. Would it be better if desktop browsers redesigned it to look more like mobile?
If there are only a few items, yes - checkboxes are great for short lists. But if it is a long list, no - a huge pile of checkboxes is awful. So if your list contains more than a dozen items, just stick with the multi-select.<p>And you are right to just use the built-in UX the browser offers. Flawed it may be, but it is standard. Don't confuse your desktop users by inventing something new. They know their own browser.