You are probably wondering how anyone could muster enough words for an entire article about the humble, ubiquitous radio button—and specifically, whether the designers should choose one of the options to be selected by default or not. Before you hit the Back button, think of the old adage “the devil is in the details,” and that so many radio buttons today are downright devious. So read on to avoid creating a diabolical design.
First and foremost, a quick reminder of what radio buttons do: They display a set of mutually exclusive options from which a person may select exactly one . People sometimes confuse radio buttons and checkboxes, but...
Toggles help users update preferences, settings, and other types of information. When using toggles, provide direct labels, use standard visual design, and deliver immediate results. Keep in mind that toggle switches should only be used when the user needs to decide between two opposing states. As
Personas do work — or, more accurately, they often work. But humans have a great ability to generalize from a single observation, so it’s understandable that somebody could sour on personas (or any UX technique) if her one experience was a bad one. You can appeal to the logical side of most
Rather than hiding irrelevant actions, disable them so that users won’t have to try to find where menu items disappeared, nor will they have to determine how to get the system back in the proper context to reveal a specific command. Also, make sure that you include all options (instead of just
Past Bitcoin to Making Money from the Blockchain
There are jobs listed from all over the world for every specialty from developer to trader to meme specialist (it’s real – look it up). There are also gig economy opportunities for blockchain and cryptocurrency companies if you don’t want to quit your day job. You can even do gigs and get
9 Blockchains Transforming the Way We Pay, Play, and Work
Look past digital currencies’ nosebleed pricing volatility, and you’ll discover a robust, decentralized, secure database. Brands and technologists are quickly figuring out how to put this powerful ledger to good use. Here are several real-world examples that demonstrate cryptos’
9 Blockchains Transforming the Way We Pay, Play, and Work
Look past digital currencies’ nosebleed pricing volatility, and you’ll discover a robust, decentralized, secure database. Brands and technologists are quickly figuring out how to put this powerful ledger to good use. Here are several real-world examples that demonstrate cryptos’
Centered Logos Hurt Website Navigation
Based on these observations, it’s clear that left-aligned logos are better than centered logos for supporting user navigation to the homepage. Note that the left-logo sites in this study still caused some homepage-navigation errors (although far fewer than the centered-logo sites). This is
the radio buttons: always select one? mobile
When and How to Create Customer Journey Maps
Don’t expect to get “buy-in” and foster interest in your journey map by simply sending a lovely graphic as an email attachment. Make it a living interactive document that people can be a part of. Bring up your story in meetings and conversations to promote a narrative that others believe in
Brand Is Experience in the Digital Age
As his pillaging continued and Blackbeard grew in craftiness, he realized it would be prudent to extend the essence of his menacing nature from afar. He devised a tool to extend his message — an early version of the skull-and-crossbones pirate flag we all know well today. The flag served as
Setup of an Eyetracking Study
During each session, the participant (right) completed tasks using what looked to her to be a normal monitor. Meanwhile, the screen was shared on the facilitator’s screen with real-time gaze data. The facilitator (me, left) monitored the gaze calibration, watched user behavior, and administered
Usability Testing with Minors: 16 Tips
Working with minors requires parental approval; minors cannot sign consent forms on their own behalf. In our usability testing with older teenagers (16–17-year-olds), it was not uncommon for them to show up alone. Providing the consent form ahead of time allowed them to have their parent complete
Modes in User Interfaces: When They Help and When They Hurt Users
However, even this simple interface also includes access to a mode. Normally, typing a letter in either of the views will highlight other items, based on their names. However, if you click on the text label once, after that item is already selected and highlighted, the name of the item flips into
WordPress for Good: Relieving Fatigue .
In this segment, we highlight Untire, an application that helps cancer patients and survivors reduce cancer-related fatigue (CRF) symptoms and regain life. CRF is a common side-effect of cancer and related treatments; patients describe it as a paralyzing level of fatigue that leaves patients
and radio buttons: always select one? designs
WordPress for Good: The Price of Water .
After a day of distribution, only a handful of customers took the challenge despite the fact that they were only being asked to walk a fraction of the distance a Somali child walks every day. After quenching their thirst with the water, the salesman asked them to check the ingredients on the label
Recapping the State of the Word 2018
Mullenweg referenced his 2017 State of the Word where he told the WordPress community to “learn JavaScript deeply.” He said the second request is much easier: learn blocks deeply. The blocks are now the DNA of WordPress. Once you have learned about blocks, the possibilities with creation will
6 Tips for Successful Personalization
In some instances, there may well be good reason to use personalization to remove access to certain information. Examples include restricting a minor’s access to particular content or limiting employee access to a site section intended for employees in other areas of the world. An employee in
Design Thinking 101
Imagine your goal is to improve an onboarding experience for new users. In this phase, you talk to a range of actual users. Directly observe what they do, how they think, and what they want, asking yourself things like ‘what motivates or discourages users?’ or ‘where do they experience
UX Guidelines for Recommended Content
Recommendation engines are now common on a variety of websites and apps, often using some kind of artificial intelligence (AI) to drive personalized choices. With increased reliance on recommendations to direct users to items relevant to them, presenting lists of recommended content clearly, in a
JS-Kit Score: Turn Your Site into a Localized Digg
Widget provider JS-Kit has released their latest widget this morning, Score. Score adds a thumbs up/thumbs down-style ratings widget to any page content, and then aggregates the data across the entire web site into an info box that can highlight a site’s top content. It can also integrate
Images of Fitbit next smartwatch reveal heart-rate improvements
Fitbit is on schedule, as its boss James Park keeps reminding us, to launch its next smartwatch by the end of the year. We don’t know what the smartwatch will be called, though Blaze 2 seems likely, but thanks to leaks we know its design and some of the hardware improvements. Images obtained by
2 Billion Downloads Later, Apple’s App Store is Still Going Strong
It would be nice if Apple gave us a better breakdown of the kinds of apps it actually delivers (free vs. paid, games vs. utilities, etc.). This kind of transparency is obviously not in Apple’s DNA, so we depend on data from third-party services like AdMob for this information. According to
20 Exciting Business Ideas that you can Start for 10k or Less
This is a relatively new concept. If you have a passion for outdoor activities, why not use it for your business as well and make money. Outdoor activities such as hiking, trekking, camping, river rafting are all part of adventure sports that people love doing these days – irrespective of their
of radio buttons: always select one? 50
A 60-Second Trailer of the 60-Day Report on Cybersecurity
Melissa Hathaway came across our radar recently when President Obama tasked the former Bush administration aide with leading a 60-day review of Bush’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative; a largely classified, purported $30 billion, multi phase plan to address cybersecurity issues
Is Artificial Intelligence Still Relevant for Startups?
The larger the data set you can gain access to, the more interesting work your platform can do. Look at CentralSquare Technologies, an AI startup that connects emergency call centers around the country. Emergency dispatch centers ran independently for a long time before startups like CentralSquare
Radio Buttons: Always Select One? | TV Meets the Web
TV Meets the Web
The Web on television should still be more user-driven and individualized than the fully passive mass medium of broadcast TV, but it needs to move in directions better suited to the device. This is not to say that WebTV users can not benefit from accessing some parts of the traditional Web: after
The Same Link Twice on the Same Page: Do Duplicates Help or Hurt?
Note that we don’t count it as wasted redundancy when a picture and its label both link to the same place. For example, if the photo of the football players in the above screenshot were a link to athletics, that would provide a bigger click target (helpful for mobile users), but would not cause
Beyond Blue Links: Making Clickable Elements Recognizable
With that said, the flat-design trend (a style of interface design that emphasizes 2-D flat illustrations and is well exemplified by iOS 7 and Windows 8) has some website designers taking the minimalist approach to the extreme. The idea behind flat design is to simplify the interface. However
