On Thu, 2008-04-24 at 10:36 -0500, Shaun McCance wrote: > On Thu, 2008-04-24 at 16:08 +0100, Calum Benson wrote: > > On 23 Apr 2008, at 21:21, Matteo Settenvini wrote: > > > > > > I'd like to see "radio button" really go away, far away, never to turn > > > back. It's way better using the term "option" and that's all; if you > > > need to refer to some of these options, you just call them a "group of > > > options", and you ask the user to "choose one of the following > > > options". > > > > Or call them "option buttons", as some toolkits have done in the past. > > That's Microsoft's recommendation, by the way. Radio > button is a very unfortunate word that, I think, most > people don't intuitively understand. On the other > hand, it's a fairly entrenched word at this point. > I'm not entirely sure which recommendation to make > at this point. I'm not convinced that it is entrenched. I'm certain anyone who has built or document GUIs knows the term. I would not say the same for users, or even engineers who never work with a GUI. The metaphor is not successful. I recall while working at National Geographic that the documentation team used the term 'radio dial'. I pointed out that the correct term was "'radio button', like in you car'". All three writers boggled at my suggestion. It did not look like a button, let alone look like anything in their cars. I had to explain the behavioural aspect to them. I think all users will understand the intent of an option button better than a radio button. Alas GNOME themes do not do a good job displaying the option as a button. Most representations of the widget look like the scantron forms that students fill in using a soft pencil. -- __C U R T I S C. H O V E Y_______ Guilty of stealing everything I am.
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