Checkboxes are a difficult UI element to use properly. The problem is they are asking a yes/no question, but you can only see one of the choices. This morning I got a perfect example.

My son Max is trying to write an installer for a Windows program (sniff, they grow up so fast!). I pointed him at Inno Setup because I had used it in the past and found it to be straightforward, and it comes with a helpful wizard. He came back and said, “That wizard is no good, it just makes an empty install file!”

I tried the wizard, and saw the problem. At the bottom of the first page is a checkbox labeled,

Create a new empty script file.

Max had checked it, because he thought it meant, “I want to make a new installer.” If instead, there had been two radio buttons labeled,

• I want to start with an empty install script and fill it in myself
• I want the wizard to ask questions, and create a finished script for me

he would have made the proper choice. He didn’t know what the alternative to the checkbox was. The key word in the checkbox was “empty”, but Max interpreted it as “new”, or maybe even “script file”. Explicitly listing the two alternatives makes the choice very clear.

BTW: This is the UI equivalent of Booleans suck.