Comments on: Default Radio Button Behavior

By: Tej Kohli

Tej Kohli — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 23:33:00 +0000

I agree with Brooke that “With no â€œnoneâ€ choice available they would need to reload the form.”

By: Victor Bachenko

Victor Bachenko — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:27:19 +0000

Everyone needs a hug.

By: numerius negidus

numerius negidus — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 23:03:34 +0000

Hrrm hello ... I tried to unselect the selected radiobutton (by modifying the html), "just to see", because of the content of the entry, and, to my surprise, it worked. I then tried to put some random value in the value attribute of a radio, because I am very curious >_>, and the value was put in the results.

Is it a normal behaviour ? =X

By: John

John — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 22:10:00 +0000

I would prefer to at least have the option as many times I get asked by my boss/client/collegue/etc to do something that goes against standards and best practices. I pick my battles with them and always recommend the best way I think it should be done. They usually listen but sometimes there isn't enough time to explain or develop a better way (in their opinion). Time is usually money.

To have a tool further encroach on my ability to 'break' a standard is a deal breaker for me. Let me decide how I want to break my W3C compliance....there are far worse ways my clients could force me to on the site this form will appear on and as long as they are paying, I'll do what they ask but will give my reasonings for doing it the 'right way'.

I've seen plenty of examples with other web based apps that give a strong warning if you do something that goes against a best practice or standard...until it's the law, it's bend/breakable and should be an option.

Your tool should give us the choice, plain and simple or I'll find another one which would be sad because I like this one.

By: Tony

Tony — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 00:17:44 +0000

If we have group of radiobuttons in options, one radiobutton (it need be the first) need to be checked. BUT! Using radiobuttons for voting (for example) is fail. Radiobuttons have concrete behaviour and we shouldn't change it (because in this case radiobuttons will have in voting one behaviour and in options another).

In controls like voting we need simply clickable answers no radiobuttons. To vote user need to click once, not select radiobutton and push dummy button "Vote!".

I consider voting as example.

By: Estebes

Estebes — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 23:44:40 +0000

What about automatically adding a “None of the above” and making that the default if none is chosen? I hate the idea of not having any way to unchoose if one chooses by accident, and this way you avoid the ‘putting words in the users mouth’ issue.

By: kevin c smith

kevin c smith — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 18:42:49 +0000

I think maybe you need to re-read the spec. It states pretty clearly that UA behavior is undefined in these cases:

If no radio button in a set sharing the same control name is initially "on", user agent behavior for choosing which control is initially "on" is undefined.

The bit you quoted above is from RFC 1866, and reappears in the HTML 2.0 spec, but a lot of things have changed since then ;)

By: David

David — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 12:52:01 +0000

Interesting.

Makes me think HTML radio buttons are baddly specified. The W3C should permit none to be selected and require that browser vendors provide some means to allow the user to revert to none selected after changing their mind about a selection.

By: Brook Elgie

Brook Elgie — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 08:57:23 +0000

I agree with the W3C position of having a default selected.

If having "none" selected is a meaningful option, it must be made one of the explicit choices, so that its meaning can be selected and deselected in the same way as the other choices. Especially in a situation where the user has selected an option, then changes their mind and wants to have nothing selected. With no "none" choice available they would need to reload the form.

If Wufoo doesn't enforce this, perhaps it could strongly suggest it in some way.

By: Adrian D.

Adrian D. — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 09:24:45 +0000

In terms of asking survey type questions I think it is best to leave it unchecked. If you have something pre-filled, then I think that would tempt some participants to skip the question since validation requires no effort on their part (I know I'd skip in some circumstances). In this case I think the spec is wrong.

However, for Web Apps I think it is best to check the safe or default option initially, e.g. "Are you sure you want to delete this file?" [ ] Yes [.] No