Re: reset buttons in forms - useful or not?

I completely concur - I see no reason why any web form should have a reset
button: they're unnecessary and users lose information.

In my experience, using the Refresh/Reload button usually does the trick in
resetting form information in the rare cases this needs to be done. There
seems no need to duplicate this functionality with a form reset button.

When I think of the number of times I have lost data through clicking one of
the evil little blighters accidentally...

Cheers

Ian Anderson
zStudio | web accessibility consulting

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jesper Tverskov" <jesper.tverskov@mail.tele.dk>
To: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 10:00 AM
Subject: Re: reset buttons in forms - useful or not?



As a rule of thumb the reset button should never be present. It is
almost never of any use, and most often just potential harmful as you
rightly say. Joe Clark is telling us the same thing in his book Building
Accessible Websites, page 281: "Reset buttons are a miserable idea...I
have never once found a Reset button that truly needed to be there."

There could be exceptions, but I don't know of any.

Jesper

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] På
vegne af Scarlett Julian (ED)
Sendt: 23. marts 2004 10:17
Til: 'w3c-wai-ig@w3.org'
Emne: reset buttons in forms - useful or not?




Hi all,

just a thought but how useful are reset buttons in forms? It strikes me
that to give the user an opportunity to accidentally wipe out all the
info they have just typed in may not be the best idea in the world. Is
the type attribute of "reset" considered to be enough warning for users
not to accidentally choose it?

Also, I have seen several instances of the reset button being located
before the submit button (both in layout and mark-up flow) which causes
momentary uncertainty in my mind so how it's perceived by users with
cognitive difficulties is maybe a real concern.

Any views?

J.

Julian Scarlett
Education Web Officer
Floor 6, Derwent House
150, Arundel Gate
Sheffield S1 2JY

tel: 0114 2735612
http://www.sheffield.gov.uk/education/


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Received on Tuesday, 23 March 2004 05:19:57 UTC