I usually add the clear form button to HTML forms by default, but tonight I had what alcholics call a "moment of clarity". Why the hell do we add this? In all my years of using the internet I have never gotten to the end of the form and thought "crap!, I screwed up, I need to reset this!". Is this button actually necessary or a hold over from another time?
I got nothing, your logic is perfect.
craigmoliver
2009-09-30 01:24:32
Well actually I can't anything about you but I remember using it a couple of times back in past times.
Braveyard
2009-09-30 01:25:42
+20
A:
I stopped adding those about 1997. It really bothers me when I fill out a large form and accidentially hit the Clear button. I am not really sure why they were ever used in the first place. You're right, I don't think I've ever filled out a form and said to myself, "Oh wait a minute, I think I want to start over?"
Brian Behm
2009-09-30 01:26:31
That was a great year. Remember all the 3D raised borders on HTML tables?
MusiGenesis
2009-09-30 01:48:56
Does the browser's edit->undo work if you clear a form by accident?
Matthew Lock
2009-09-30 02:14:27
what if the form was pre-populated with data? You make a change and then realize you need to revert it back to what it was?
Evernoob
2009-09-30 08:12:32
Good point @Evernoob, @Anthony had about the same comment. That is about the only case that I could really see using it but even then it's all or nothing. If you've made alot of changes and want to undo them all it will work for that but if you've made alot of changes and then accidentally hit the reset instead of submit then you have that "Oh crap!" moment.
Brian Behm
2009-10-01 02:53:33
+1
A:
I guess nowadays maybe there are some issues with browsers autofilling forms for you with irrelevant information that people might want to clear.
Colin Coghill
2009-09-30 01:27:00
A:
I think instead of clearing the whole form, selecting some of them and pressing clear button would be something users would want more.
Braveyard
2009-09-30 01:46:26
+7
A:
No, we don't need it. I usually just hit the Refresh button.
And then remember it's a @$#$@# Flash website.
MusiGenesis
2009-09-30 01:48:01
I thought most browsers keep the data in forms when you refresh. Firefox and Chrome do, anyway.
DisgruntledGoat
2009-10-06 17:12:18
+4
A:
In what situation would you enter totally wrong information for 10+ fields before realizing it? And then, how much time does it save to clear them before starting over instead of just changing each value? It's adding a major UI element that is not only completely useless, but dangerous for 99.99% of your users so the remaining .01% saves maybe 1 second of their time.
Rex M
2009-09-30 01:50:54
@Chris I have, and the huge amount of frustration caused by an accidental clicking "reset" has *always* been much greater than the occasional need to actually reset a form. I'm fine with a "start over" button somewhere, but the usual "submit / reset" button layout is humbug and dangerous.
Pekka
2010-03-27 17:38:13
@Pekka: I'll grant you it may be frustrating to accidentally click on the wrong button; but that's a far cry from being dangerous.
Chris Lively
2010-03-28 18:18:57
@Chris if you have spent half an hour filling out a form, the prospect of losing the entered data because of a click on the wrong button *is* dangerous IMO.
Pekka
2010-03-28 18:20:53
@Chris and totally by accident, I just stumbled upon some theory I think underlines the point: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/03/the-opposite-of-fitts-law.html
Pekka
2010-03-28 19:24:20
@Chris standard UI design - anything which destroys user data with no undo is dangerous, and must have the *strongest* justification for being present.
Rex M
2010-03-28 23:10:55
+12
A:
The nice thing about the reset button is that it will repopulate all form elements with their original values, not simply set them to zero or blank. So if the form was generated by server with saved data, the user makes a bunch of changes, and then realizes not only that something is wrong but that they also have no clue what the original value was, reset is VERY handy.
Also it's nice for forms with lots of numerical data, like the timesheet page I'm working on right now. There are potentially 16 fields, all with generic, somewhat meaningless numbers. If the user figures out they were looking at the wrong schedule, it's nice to just nuke it back to what the server loaded.
Having said all of that, my page does NOT include a reset button, simply because I didn't want to leave open the exact opposite of awesome it presents, which is "and I'll just click this button to save...oh shit."
What I do instead is any field can be set to 0, but any non-valid data (non-numeric, less than 0, greater than 16) will revert back to the value last entered (which is stored via js). Doesn't offer the grand sweep, but it at least lowers the amount of possible data entry errors and keeps the user from losing data over a simple mistake.
456 has a great article and link on this topic, by the way.
Anthony
2009-09-30 02:01:49
**Pressing ESC on single fields resets just that field to its default value.** (maybe not in all browsers?) But how many users actually know this? Probably not many--keyboard shortcuts aren't terribly obvious. However, the idea of being able to reset *individual* fields is useful.
Kimball Robinson
2010-04-06 20:40:47
A:
Anthony's example seems to be the only valid reason why we would add a "clear" button on forms now-a-days. It only seems relevant within a web application of some sort. I don't think general single-direction-forms will benefit much, such as collecting personal information. I couldn't tell you the the last... or for that matter, the first time I ever used a "clear" button as a USER. I can certainly give examples to when I used it as a developer, but that was before Firefox became so awesome!
So; in the end... I think it's more traditional than functional. Unless you've got a complex web application, I see no need for this extra functionality.
FergatROn
2009-09-30 14:14:13
A:
I often have a select box that has an "add new >>" option, whereupon the select field morphs into a text field to allow users to add new values to the field on-the-fly. I put a reset button so they can get the regular select box back.
In order to avoid the usability issue of accidentally clicking reset when they meant to click submit I put it some distance away from submit and have it in a neutral tone while the submit button is an accented color (sorta like OS X, it's got the glowing blue button and then the grey ones.)
However, I still don't really like it. I've been exploring a reset button of some sort on each select box that morphs so they can just reset that one piece.
rpflo
2009-09-30 14:26:47
A:
Big LOL at the people actually admitting "I don't do that ANY MORE"... Why the hell did you do it IN THE FIRST PLACE? Why would anybody ever want to type in a long message and then delete all of it, by pressing a button, which is almost always right next to the 'Submit' button (i.e. within ten pixels)?
Answer: they wouldn't. They never have, and they never will, but too many idiots just blindly follow whatever they've been spoonfed in the past, and inflict this misery on the rest of us.
Try e-mailing any website which uses a 'Clear' button and asking them to remove it - they will make up ANY excuse they can, rather than do what their customers want.
Moronic 'Designers'
2010-03-27 16:49:09
A:
Good question! I mostly add a clear button when i remember it, but i don't really think its a must have. So if i forget it i just leave it without one..
And i don't think i ever used a clear button myself.. xD
Fogh
2010-03-27 16:55:08