Since radio buttons cannot be unchecked, what is the purpose of them?

Question

Aren't check (tick) buttons more useful?

Why do they exist?

They seem quite unnecessary to me, can you please explain to me the purpose of radio buttons?

If there was a question that asked for your gender, it would be bad design to use check-boxes - what if someone checked both? Or how about "early" and "late" - you can't be both! — enhzflep, Oct 30 '12 at 03:32

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

2

They are used so that only one option can be chosen out of a group of options. Check buttons allow the user to choose multiple options.

Edit:

If the goal is to have check boxes for which only 0 or 1 of the boxes in a group is checked, then check out the jsFiddle from this answer. It presents a simple way to do this using jQuery.

Here's the Javascript code used:

$("input:checkbox").click(function() {
    if ($(this).attr("checked") === true) {
        var group = "input:checkbox[name='" + $(this).attr("name") + "']";
        $(group).attr("checked", false);
        $(this).attr("checked", true);
    } else {
        $(this).attr("checked", false);
    }
});

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

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answered Oct 30 '12 at 03:30

Jeff Gortmaker

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Is this also possible with check(tick) buttons too? – Rohit Rayudu Oct 30 '12 at 03:31
Is what also possible? Only choosing one option? – Jeff Gortmaker Oct 30 '12 at 03:31
Yes is only choosing one option possible with check buttons – Rohit Rayudu Oct 30 '12 at 03:34
It might be confusing for the user because most users are used to being able to select multiple check boxes, but [here is a question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9709209/html-select-only-one-checkbox-in-a-group) with an answer that allows you to do that using jQuery. – Jeff Gortmaker Oct 30 '12 at 03:34
Danke schon. C'est tres interessant. – Rohit Rayudu Oct 30 '12 at 03:36

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 30 '12 at 03:41

Checkboxes are for multiple selection while radio buttons only allow a single selection. It is really by design of HTML and before that standard user interfaces that checkboxes and radio buttons behave this way.

Radio buttons derive their name from the design of the station presets on a radio (think car dash radio). Back before radios were all digital, those radio buttons physically pushed in causing the single selection to push the existing selection out.

Since radio buttons cannot be unchecked, what is the purpose of them?

2 Answers2

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