Radio buttons

From TechWriter Wiki

This is an antiquated term, and should be avoided - use option buttons instead.

The term refers to physical press-down buttons on old radio sets, where pressing one button (in the group) caused any other button i the same group that was currently depressed to be popped up again. This made it possible to have only one button depressed (selected) at a time - because only one option at a time was possible (for example, the radio was tuned to either FM or AM or LW - the options are mutually-exclusive).

'Radio buttons' in software applications should normally be referred to as option buttons. However, a permissible exception is where the term 'Radio Button' is used by the thing (application, system,or technology) being documented. For example, HTML provides an input type of radio, so when documenting the use of this it is better to use consistent (if not ideal) terminology.