What UI first distinguished radio buttons from checkboxes with circles/squares?(retrocomputing.stackexchange.com) |
What UI first distinguished radio buttons from checkboxes with circles/squares?(retrocomputing.stackexchange.com) |
The checkbox has been a common design element in forms for a long time. But people can of course tick off all boxes.
So when form designers needed to emphasize that you should only select one option, they often used a group of non-boxed options together with instruction copy that read “Circle one” (or similar).
The name “radio button” of course comes from physical buttons, but those were often square. So I think the specific circular shape is actually derived from circling an option on paper.
But also, when you have a dozen monochromatic pixels to work with, 'square' and 'round' are pretty much the only usefully distinct shapes. Checkboxes were square for obvious reasons, so to distinguish a similar set of controls, you pretty much have to use a circle.
I'm pretty sure these concepts moved directly from physical systems to digital ones. Every person alive then knew what an empty square next to a line of text meant, and everyone understood the concept of ganged push-buttons. Just map it onto a pixel grid and you're good to go
It's just one opinion versus another, but in my experience early radios often had round buttons. I'm thinking of the kind of radios that preceded TVs.
Cassette decks certainly had rectangular "one choice only" buttons, but those came along decades later.
> 1982: Dragging through a field of check-boxes flips the state of the first and assigns the new state to all other boxes dragged through.
In part it's because I don't like check boxes. They don't have great feedback about what's going to happen. If I designed a UI where someone is likely to check a lot of boxes, I would feel I had done something very wrong.
Sometimes it's unavoidable and so the framework might as well allow it. And as a user, designers often do things I wouldn't have. But I can say I don't miss having that feature.
https://lobste.rs/s/v6mkz6/implementing_one_more_ui_componen...
https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/116712/apples-round-c...
(they're not the only offenders in this monstrosity)
Some paid services I’ve used for years have started aggressively automatically logging me out while I’m driving (eg when using the CarPlay app, which doesn’t include a login screen).
I really wonder what the PM’s are thinking.
The one that drives me crazy is slider based checkboxes. I never know which side is on/off. Bad UI convention.
And speaking of checkboxes, I want an actual tick mark (checkmark), not a X cross. Its called checkbox, not Xbox or crossbox, it has to be a checkmark. Also, its a square, not a box. Disaster.
Those toggles actually mimic real hardware that used to be fairly common. I find those should be preferred over checkboxes for anything that takes immediate effect. If they don't, and you're collecting a bunch of options at once, in a form, then use checkboxes.
And yes, radio buttons got their name from the push-button ganged switches that were ubiquitous on pre-digital radios.
This is similar to what I mean, although it's a radio, not a TV and the buttons I remember where taller and had ridges on the side so they could be turned easily.
https://herculodge.typepad.com/herculodge/2011/06/as-i-walke...
File choosers usually do something like that, rather than a separate check box component. You select the icon rather than a check box near the icon, so it's slightly clearer what it is you want operated on.
Ideally you'd find other ways to narrow the list. A long list of items is a UX disaster waiting to happen. The more you can categorize your data beforehand, the better off you are. If you can make it all-or-nothing, you're less likely to mis-click.
Eg https://www.computerhope.com/issues/pictures/close-window.jp...
I think people have long since learned that if an X is on the corner of a window, that is a button which closes that window.
Here is a screenshot of what actual checkboxes and radio buttons look like on iOS 26 Beta 2: https://imgur.com/a/TwMRW4X
Increase number of app downloads
So, I guess they win?
I can’t imagine how the mechanism would work if each preset knob was a tuning knob.
I'm gonna have to shoot a video next time I'm at my parents' place, aren't I? (The old Blaupunkt still serves as a stereo in the garage.)
unless the colors are red and green, and the user happens to be red-green colorblind. So yes, always have text indicate on/off as well.
For instance, my old stereo has push button toggles, where “in” means “on” (this convention was common because of how those switches work), and three way levers with labels on two of the three positions (there’s no space to label the middle position, and it means “default”.
Relying on color to make something easy to parse is an awesome accessibility choice.
