Question: I was intrigued by this statement by [@DanWilson](http://twitter.com/DanWIlson) on Twitter:

> 
> All Web Developers: Never Ever Ever
>  put anything after the password box
>  and before submit button on a form.
>  Tab MUST go directly to submit.
> 
> 
> 

When I asked for clarification, he added:

> 
> because the UI pattern is Username TAB Password TAB Enter Key.
> 
> 
> 

Can anyone point me to evidence that corroborates or contradicts that claim, even if it's anecdotal?

Answer: 
Just think about your own experiences - when you log in to a site, what do you expect to do? Me, I expect to do exactly what Dan said - Username TAB Password TAB enter. I've even seen placed that have "Remember me" functionality maintain this basic concept - On chase.com, to tab to the "remember my username" checkbox, you actually have to tab PAST the submit button to focus on the checkbox. I don't know that I really like that, but it does make the general login much quicker.

One addition I would have to his statement is that on a login page, the initial focus MUST be on the username field. I can't count the number of websites that I go to where focus is improperly set (or not set at all) when a page is first loaded.
It is irrelevant to respond "I don't use this pattern". Whether or not the pattern is THE dominant one (and your sample-size-one doesn't show this), if it's a significant pattern then it should be respected. Maybe only 10% of users press a tab before enter, but you don't want to piss off 10% of your users for something as simple to fix as this.