[jahewson]

What evidence do you have that people find it easy? My experience with such forms is that people make mistakes constantly. Just because awful forms are common doesn't make them easy. I'd argue that there are many easier styles of form.

Old terminals were fairly space-constrained so I can understand why this choice was made, but modern computers with their high-res screens do not have this restriction, e.g the iPhone has a full keyboard instead of a number pad with letters on, like feature phones had, because they had the space to do so.

[Gigablah]

Speaking of the iPhone, input forms in iPhone apps are more or less grid style.