Why autocomplete earns its place
The original article’s framing is product thinking, not plumbing: when a user enters, say, a product name, autocomplete against the existing catalogue means they pick a valid, canonical value instead of typing a near-duplicate. Fewer typos, fewer orphan records, faster entry — assurance, as the author put it, “that they’re providing valid inputs”.
The default widget
The stock jQuery UI widget needed only a source array and one call:
$(function() {
var availableTags = ["ActionScript", "AppleScript", "Asp", "BASIC", "C",
"C++", "Java", "JavaScript", "PHP", "Python", "Ruby"];
$("#tags").autocomplete({ source: availableTags });
});
Taking over the rendering
The technique the article shared was the widget’s official extension point: override how each item becomes markup. That unlocks rich suggestions — an image, a price, a category caption — instead of bare text:
$("#product").autocomplete({ source: products })
.autocomplete("instance")._renderItem = function(ul, item) {
return $("<li>")
.append("<div><img src='" + item.icon + "' alt=''> "
+ "<strong>" + item.label + "</strong>"
+ "<small>" + item.category + "</small></div>")
.appendTo(ul);
};Same data flow, same keyboard behaviour — the widget still manages matching and selection — but each suggestion now carries enough context to choose confidently at a glance.
The same idea today
Present-day editorial perspective.
jQuery UI has left the mainstream, but this article’s real content — suggestions should be rendered as informative objects, not strings — is now standard practice in every combobox component and search-as-you-type interface, and in the typeahead patterns we build into SaaS products today. The library was the vehicle; the UX judgement was the cargo.