[Sigia-l] "clear" button on web forms

[H Taylor]

Has anyone seen studies/information about usability of the 
"clear"/"reset" button which seems to be so common on web forms? This 
feature is fairly ubiquitous, but I can barely imagine a purpose for 
it.  (I recognize that technically, "clear" and "reset" are different, 
but in most form fields, default values are empty, so they become 
functionally identical).

How many people go through the trouble of filling out a (potentially 
long) form, only to get to the end and realize that they've filled in 
every field incorrectly and the only solution is to push a button that 
wipes out all of their entries so they can start again fresh?

On the other hand, how many people click a button which they quickly 
assume to be "submit", only to discover that the submit button was 
actually over on the other side, and the button they've just pressed 
has wiped out everything they've spent the last 5 minutes carefully 
entering?

Is there a real use for these types of buttons, or is this just 
something that was made available in the HTML spec, and has since been 
propagated by web programmers who assume that it must be useful if it's 
part of the spec?

- Hal Taylor