In web development, html , what is the best input type to be used if users are only given two choices? basic true or false for example? active or inactive?
my choices are: two radio buttons, dropdown lists with 'true' or 'false', textareas? (probably not).
I'm actually confused whether it's more valueable for the users to have less clutter (dropdown) or obvious selections (radio buttons).. what's the best input type if there are only two choices?Thanks!
In a scenario where the user has to select simple true/false or active/inactive states then I would really suggest that you use a checkbox control rather than a control which would feature redundant input, eg:
In a case such as this there is no reason to add additional input controls which provides the same result as a more simple checkbox control. Either the sync is on or not, the sync being not ON is the same as the sync being OFF.
However, there are of course cases where two alternative answers can't be provided with a simple Yes, I agree with what the checkbox label says. Such as:
download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups
This would be very confusing to try and convey using a checkbox control. So it's really all about what type of question you're asking.
But regarding whether you should use a radio button control or a dropdown for these types of questions, for a two alternative question definitely go for the radio button since that provides a better scanability of a form etc.
This depends on the meaning of the input and whether you make one of the alternatives initially selected (i.e., the default). Since it should normally be obvious at a glance to the user what the choices are and whether one of them is the default, radio buttons are normally the best way to go.
It would be poor usability to force the user to open a dropdown menu just to see the other option. Except perhaps in a very simple case where the alternatives are e.g. Yes and No.
A textarea would hardly make sense, but a single-line input box might be OK in rare cases where you really want to make the user type the answer, even though only two answers are accepted.
Note that in many cases, there should be more than two choices even if the situation superficially calls for a simple setup with two choices. For example, in addition to alternatives like “male” and “female”, it might be adequate to have the choice “don’t want to tell”
