What you are describing is what is called a domain. Domains exist is geodatabases but not shapefiles.

You basically create a field (numeric or text) which stores the value but each value has a description. So for example you have a numeric field of type SHORT called "quality". The domain would be 1 = good, 2 = OK, 3 = bad. You assign that domain to that field. So when the user edits the attribute table and clicks in the cell they will be offered up a choice of good, OK or bad, What gets written into the table behind the scenes is either 1,2, or 3.

Search the help file for Domains

What you are describing is what is called a domain. Domains exist in geodatabases but not shapefiles.

You basically create a field (numeric or text) which stores the value but each value has a description. So for example you have a numeric field of type SHORT called "quality". The domain would be 1 = good, 2 = OK, 3 = bad. You assign that domain to that field. So when the user edits the attribute table and clicks in the cell they will be offered up a choice of good, OK or bad. What gets written into the table behind the scenes is either 1, 2, or 3.

Search the help file for Domains