Why do we have a Reset Button?
– posted May 17th, 2007 by Des Traynor No comments
I was browsing through the absolutely excellent news-letter archives of the SURL Group in Wichita recently. One of their oldest articles questions the need for a “ Go” button. You remember them right. Back when every single web designer believed that they too could create a new convention for navigation styles.
The “Go” button was usually accompanied by a drop down menu with a list of different pages. You selected your desired page, and then pressed “Go”. They’re mostly dead now, as people realised that it’s not really a navigation “system” if you’re just presenting every possible location in a list. You still see relics of it around the net, but for the most part it is dead. Good riddance too.
Some work I’ve been doing recently reminded me of another button that should be a long time dead but somehow isn’t.
The reset button. Also known as the “oh shit, what did I just do?” button.
I really struggle to find one good use case for this button. What are website creators thinking…
John:“Wait Jim, what if someone fills out every single form field incorrectly in one sitting?”
Jim:“My God, you’re right, lets provide a button that removes every piece of data from the form, but for the sake of consistency we better make it look exactly like the other button, and lets place them side by side too.”
John:“Phew, that was a close escape Now I want you to move the Close without Saving button a little close to the Save button, apparently Nielsen says that buttons with similar actions should be grouped together ”
It’s one of those rare moments when site creators rescue defeat from the jaws of victory. No one really needs to reset every field, and most people know where their delete key is anyways. However, I’ve seen so many people click reset when they want to submit, sometimes on really important entries they took time deliberating over. Just one click and it’s all gone, and there is no undo. Lets hope that if we ignore it will go away soon.
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