Radio Buttons
Taken from my User Interface Design & Evaluation text book:
There is no point in using a metaphor if the physical analogue is outside the user's experience. For example, many dialog boxes in Windows contain 'radio buttons'. This metaphor comes from early radios that used mechanical buttons for selecting wavelengths. The physical design mean that only one of these could be depressed at a time. However, most buttons on radios are now electronic and do not have this inbuilt limitation, so increasingly users will not encounter buttons of this type. Thus the metaphor is becoming dated. This is probably why radio buttons are increasingly referred to as 'option buttons'.
You know... until just now, I had no idea why they were called radio buttons. I suppose I could've puzzled it out if I tried, but I didn't. They really are dated, though, aren't they?
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Beth Ballingall
food lover : world traveller : gamer : New Yorker : twenty-something : former Londoner : handbag lover : erstwhile soprano : geek