Have you ever thought about whether you’d rather select something via a dropdown menu or a +/- option? Probably not. But each method comes with strange limitations. Their usage almost feels like an extension of our sense of touch—through mouse clicks and touchscreens. The way we choose things often depends on our personal habits: Are you more of an “Everything Everywhere All at once” type, absorbing everything at once? Or do you prefer a step-by-step iteration process?
Our senses strongly influence our behavior. We smell, taste, hear, see, and touch—and we get touched. But what do we prioritize? A moment from my teenage years illustrates this perfectly: I was walking around when a mother and her son passed by. Suddenly, the child stopped, grabbed my jacket, looked at his mom, and said: “Want to have it.” I was stunned—and so were the people with me. The audacity of the child was shocking. The child’s mother apologized in shame and tried to drag her son away. He saw my jacket as a thing, completely ignoring the person wearing it. This is how our perception sometimes works—we focus on objects rather than people.
A child, unburdened by the complexities of social norms, reacts purely based on desire.
This is precisely why most countries have legal capacity law in place, limiting the ability of minors to make independent purchases. But selection isn’t only about what we buy—it’s also about how we select.
Imagine wanting to buy 100 units of a product. A +/- selector can quickly become frustrating. If you’ve ever worked with outdated software, you’re familiar with the annoyance of repetitive tasks. The introduction of dropdown menus in 1995 revolutionized this process.
The <select> element enables dropdown lists, which are widely used on ecommerce websites nowadays. That’s why I decided to provide a small plugin for the Shopware platform which enables the dropdown selection for product pages in Shopware.
If you use Shopware, you can download the Dropdown Selector plugin for free on GitHub.
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