I wonder if anyone has systematically analyzed on-line forms use for usability. The process time for each must be measurable.

My own favorite LAPT trope is the drop-down STATE field. In the US, this is a uniform two-character abbreviation, ignorance of which, for one's own address at least, should logically bar the user from filling out any on-line form. It is easy to see how this aid-to-orthodoxy would have seemed painless to a Silicon Valley form designer, whose state is fifth in the column. But had the Ur-programmer lived in Wyoming and had he or she placed the field at the bottom of a form, they would have seen that this two-character field often took as much time to accurately fill out as the whole rest of the form.

Indeed why not reward the user who is aware of their zip-PLUS address and let them just key in that one number? I don't believe I have ever seen this.

It is also amusing to see the results from the COUNTRY drop-down. Some perhaps more politically-correct designers make 99.99% of their users search down to the bottom of a list of some 200 nation names to find "US" or "United States". This involuntary tour of the globe hardly promotes international harmony.