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> when I was a kid, a radio button was associated with the big tube
radio
> sitting on top of the corner table
... and today, it's STILL associated with radios; most home radio
receivers have station-selection buttons, and there's hardly a car radio
that doesn't have them.
Among people who've ever operated a car radio, car-radio buttons are BY
FAR the most familiar real-world analogy to the
mutually-exclusive-choices-with-little-buttons-next-to-them GUI
elements. If those people know that a "radio" is a radio receiver
(i.e., if they're not in the tiny worldwide minority that only knows the
thing as a "wireless") then "radio button" is a GREAT name for the GUI
element, exactly BECAUSE the term is "associated with the big tube radio
sitting on top of the corner table".
People who've never operated a pushbutton radio will of course not
intuit what "radio button" means... But they'll be no worse off than if
it were called an "option button", which NO ONE intuitively understands.
Why not just call the thing a "button"? At least that way, no reader
will ever have to look in a glossary to discover whether the vague
"option" adjective is actually meaningful.
-Andrew
=== Andrew Warren - awarren -at- synaptics -dot- com
=== Synaptics, Inc - Santa Clara, CA
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