Use radio buttons for mutually exclusive options Usability Guideline

Description

Radio buttons are easier to use than drop-downs when there are 6 choices or fewer.

Help

One usability study showed radio buttons give reliably better performance than drop-down lists for mutually exclusive selections. If screen space allows use radio buttons instead of lists/dropdowns with fewer than 7 items.

Applicable standards

• Usability.gov 13:9

Note: The guidelines.usability.gov website has been down since July 2020, although www.usability.gov is still operating and the PDF version of the guidelines is still available.

Change history

• 1.0 Feb 2007 Added.

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Rule ID: UseGov13.9