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I'm designing a responsive form and wondering about the use of radio buttons. It would make a lot more sense for me to use buttons on mobile forms e.g. are you married? [YES] [NO] ...instead of making the user check the radio option.

Does this mean I get rid of radio buttons on the responsive form? It's a very long form so that would mean lots of [YES] [NO] options instead.

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  • Why would you prefer buttons? Is there some problem with your platform so that you can't make the form responsive using radiobuttons?
    – Vince Bowdren
    Aug 8, 2013 at 10:09
  • Look into Twitter Bootstrap buttons maybe! They are Boolean toggles, but still have Yes/No indicators. Just a thought :)
    – Taylor Evanson
    Oct 4, 2013 at 16:27

2 Answers 2

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Checkboxes are typical for boolean (0/1) actions, so I would not recommend replacing them in general and saving radio buttons for questions with more options than two.

However, depending on the questions you are going to ask, radio buttons may be beter solution ( [ ] are checkboxes and ( ) are radios in my example):

Option 1:

  • Question: Are you married?

  • Answers: ( ) yes ( ) no

Option 2:

  • Question: Let us know if you are married:
  • Answer: [ ] I am married

Option 2a:

  • No question at all - you can ommit the question in some cases, as the checkbox tends to be self-explanatory.
  • Answer: [ ] I am married
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  • +1, but yes/no is a technically correct, but not a great example for radio-buttons. I usually reserve radio buttons for when there are more than two options with a single valid answer... ie. Marital Status ()single ()married ()divorced ()widowed.
    – Don Nickel
    Aug 8, 2013 at 11:56
  • You are 100% right, and that's what I meant as well by saying "saving radio buttons for questions with more options than two". The only thing I am referring in this situation is HOW the question is answered (the wording): Are you married / Let us know if you are married. In case of using a checkbox it is not a good idea to ask a question "Are you married?", because it is natural to choose of one of two verbal answers: "yes" and "no".
    – Dominik Oslizlo
    Aug 8, 2013 at 12:18
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If your question is to use [YES] [NO] instead of radio buttons: I really do not think it matters that much. They're just different styles of buttons.

Even if you are thinking about replacing a table-like structure, for example: with the question on the left, and then 2 radio buttons on the right, then I would say it is probably just slightly better to style your buttons as [YES] and [NO] than just the simple round radio buttons because your user will see the value of each button after every question instead of having to remember that left is yes and right is no. But... well, like I said: perhaps a slight improvement.

In terms of interaction style, there really is no difference for the user, they still have to click/touch each answer.

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