Radio button

A radio button or option button is a type of graphical user interface element that allows the user to choose one of a predefined set of options. Radio buttons are arranged in groups of two or more and displayed on screen as, for example, a list of circular holes that can contain white space (for unselected) or a dot (for selected). Adjacent to each radio button is normally shown a caption describing the choice that this radio button represents. When the user selects a radio button, any previously selected radio button in the same group becomes deselected. Selecting a radio button is done by clicking the mouse on the button, or the caption, or by using a keyboard shortcut.

Radio buttons got their name from the physical buttons used on radios to select preset stations - when one of the buttons was pressed, it would pop out when another button was pushed in.

It is possible that initially none of the radio buttons in a group are selected. This state cannot be restored by interacting with the radio button widget (but it may be possible through other user interface elements).

An interesting aspect of radio buttons, when used in an HTML form, is that if no button in a group is checked, then no name-value pair is passed when the form is submitted. For example, for a radio button group named Gender with the options Male and Female, the variable Gender would not be passed, even with a blank value.