Checkbox required?….Yes, No, maybe so…?

I have had several folks ask me why they cannot make the ‘Yes/No Checkbox’ data type a required field so I thought I would put it down on “paper” ( e-paper??) anyway….

It makes sense when you stop and think about it a bit. There are two possible values that this can have, Checked (Yes) or Un-checked (No).

It will ALWAYS have to have one of those two values. There is no option for an “empty” Yes/No Checkbox. So in a way, it is “required” by default, since it will always have a valid value of checked or un-checked.

To have the option of being “required” is rather superfluous. Make sense?

So, what to do if you want to force someone to choose between ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ options?

You should use the ‘Choice’ data type and have the options of ‘Yes’ and ‘No’. This data type can be set to be ‘required’. Then you can leave the default value empty so the user is forced to set a value. You have the option of displaying the values as a dropdown or as Radio Buttons.

Okay…Yes, the option to choose checkboxes is also available but that would allow users to choose both ‘Yes’ AND ‘No’… what does that mean??? “Maybe”?? PLEASE do not do that to people… that’s cruel!

 

Hope this helps.