I reckon this discussion is relevant here too.
The one I'm struggling with at the moment is a form with Select Gender M /
F. It's a government web site so I'm trying to be careful.
Checkboxes are inappropriate. I could use a <select> with M and F but then
what for "unspecified" or "don't want to answer" or "I just ignored that
question"? Also, whatever is chosen takes 2 clicks. Unchecked radio buttons
are a very usable choice, you hit one or the other or neither and move on.
Mike said "...it is sometimes invalid communications/user interface to have
one and only one 'checked' item at all times. I said, and still hold to
the view, that sometimes a form has to be presented with none of the radio
buttons 'checked'". I agree.
What happens in this scenario
I check a radio button
Then I think, "no, I don't want to check any of them"
How do I uncheck the radio button checked without setting one of the others in the same group?
Reset the whole form?
So now, by supposedly giving me the option of not making a choice, you force me to make a choice.
Radio button groups exist for precisely the situation where there is one and only one option that must be chosen. That's how they have always worked.
The web has enough trouble with people inventing their own buttons, styling scrollbars with Microsoft's CSS like scrollbar style abominations, inventing their own scrollbars (why does every flash site have to do that?).
The UI conventions of the desktop have been around for a generation now. They represent the baseline of user expectations about how an interface should look, and work. Their appearance and behavior are burned deep into the unconscious of all computer users. Let's not keep reinventing the wheel.
HTML and the platforms on which our browsers run provide perfectly good UI widgets and behaviours that users are used to.
Now to try to be useful
In this scenario
The one I'm struggling with at the moment is a form with Select Gender M /
F. It's a government web site so I'm trying to be careful.
Checkboxes are inappropriate. I could use a <select> with M and F but then
what for "unspecified" or "don't want to answer" or "I just ignored that
question"? Also, whatever is chosen takes 2 clicks.
Yes, checkboxes are not appropriate, as there should be at most one answer. Two checkboxes could allow 2 answers.
What is wrong with a popup menu, the initial option being "No answer" and the other options Male and Female?
The UI itself tells them they need not answer. If you had radio buttons, you'd need a label that said "you do not have to answer this question" and then you have to hope the user sees it (whereas in the popup menu case, they see it while making the choice.)
And we also avoid the problem of them checking a radio button then not being able to uncheck it.
They also need only click once.
So it seems that in this case the popup menu is superior to misusing radio buttons.
John
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Horner Sent: Wednesday, 2 February 2005 5:25 p.m. To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] Default state of radio buttons. (Maybe OT?)
That's the relevance to standards - i.e. that if it's only standard if there is a default radio button and never valid if none of them are 'checked' then the standard is wrong and ought to be changed.
I heartily agree, Mike. ------------------------------------------------------------ "Have You Validated Your Code?" John Horner (+612 / 02) 9333 3488 Senior Developer, ABC Online http://www.abc.net.au/ ------------------------------------------------------------ ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/
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