[thelist] radio/checkbox usability

[Jake Stetser]

Heh. Just to let you know, I had nothing to do with the design (before my
time), although it's partially my job to the site more usable, so I'm very
interested in this thread :)

Oh, and I've already brought up the lack of quotes. The response is that
they are unnecessary and add extra bytes to the download process.

any ideas?

Jacob Stetser <jake.stetser at headhunter.net>
Website Development Manager
Headhunter.net
P: 770.349.2906

-----Original Message-----
From: aardvark [mailto:roselli at earthlink.net]
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 12:54 PM
To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
Subject: [thelist] radio/checkbox usability



stumbled across this today:
http://www.headhunter.lycos.com/JobPoster/Resumes/resfind.asp?t
=1

overall the page is pretty ugly and it doesn't do much for me... but 
one thing caught my eye that seemed really cool and potentially 
useful... scroll down to the checkboxes or radio buttons while using 
IE5/wintel or Opera 5 (N6 is acting up, so i can't test it there)...

notice the hover?

i'm trying to guage the usability impact of this (without 
implementing it and bringing in a focus group)... and here's where i 
am...

- it only works on browsers that support <label> and CSS, so it 
won't confuse users that surf in NN3 (por ejemplo), and it will 
degrade well if you don't have CSS enabled somehow...

- it doesn't work precisely like most radio buttons or checkboxes in 
my OS, since most of them don't have a color change on hover...

- the cursor stays an arrow and does not become a hand, so it 
doesn't signal that it's a link in the standard sense...

- the rollover color is different than the link color on the page... i 
wonder if having them the same would be problematic...

overall i think it can be very useful... any ideas?

btw, the (corrected) code is:

<input type="radio" name="DT" value="DT32*" id="DT2"><label 
for="DT2" onmouseover="this.style.color='blue'" 
onmouseout="this.style.color='black'">Up to 25%</label>


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