Re: dropdown selections: default values or no?

Jacob,
I disagree with your suggestion of leaving none of the radio buttons on.

From a usability standpoint and by definition, radio buttons should always
have one choice selected.  Otherwise, you break the metaphor.  

Radio buttons got their name from the physical buttons used on radios to
select preset stations - when one of the buttons was pressed, it would pop
out when another button was pushed in.

c

-----Original Message-----
From: ACM SIGCHI WWW Human Factors (Open Discussion)
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jacob Mattison
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 6:46 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: dropdown selections: default values or no?

I like to use radio buttons for yes/no.  Typically radio buttons start
out with neither checked; that can be your cue to prompt that the field
is required.

Jacob Mattison
Web Developer

-----Original Message-----
From: ACM SIGCHI WWW Human Factors (Open Discussion)
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected]

But we have a similar problem with mandatory check boxes. The check box
has two states (yes/no).  How can we make sure the user meant really
"No" and didn't just forget to check the box?  Should we then use a drop
down for Yes, No and use "None" as a default value?

Currently, we propose a mixed state for the check box (check box in
green) when the user gets to our form.  The user then has to click once
to check the box and click a second time to uncheck it.  

Any proposition on how to treat mandatory check box with no default
value?

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