Is a cancel button really needed in a form in a page?

I have a form, which is on a page of its own - it's a huge one, and one of the internal reviewers recommended to add a cancel button to it. I am just trying to figure out if a cancel button is applicable in a full-page form.

I can't figure out what should be the behavior of the form when the cancel button is clicked. The recommendation given was that clicking the cancel button should take them to the main home page but that just seems odd since there is no guarantee that the person would have landed on the form page from the main page (or from any page) and I don't want users thinking "Wait, how did I just get to this page?"

So do you think I should push back and say a cancel button is not needed or do you see any specific value add to it?

Note: Please note I did look at the older questions

Is a cancel button necessary in a windows form? - This deals with modal dialogues so it's not applicable to my case

Is a cancel button necessary in a web form? - The question is generic and the responses don't really address my question.

Answer

I would push back on the recommendation in this case unless the person can give you a business case or user story that specifically requires a cancel button.

If the primary method of navigation to this form is via bookmark or in a list of internal tools/links that people bookmark, and the form is not clearly part of a hierarchy or other discernible navigation path, you're right that in this case there is no good answer to "well, where do I take the user when they cancel?"

While the Alertbox for Cancel and Reset buttons is 12 years old, I think that in your specific situation the guidance not to use cancel is appropriate. To wit, this is not a multi-step form, and since it no action is happening at all until the user submits the form (I am assuming), the need to have a cancel button for "an extra feeling of safety" doesn't seem to apply. In other words, if the user can safely abandon this form then I think Cancel is unnecessary.

Note that if there is any Ajax-ified auto-saving or other behavior happening in this form, I probably would have a cancel button, which would lead to some sort of informative landing page that said something to the effect of "It's cool, nothing happened with your data, carry on with your work" (ok, maybe not those words...), since you'd still have the problem of not knowing where to send a user back to, should they cancel.