We don't have a specific forum for User Interface design, so I'll just post here.
Of late I have been educating myself with the human aspect of software development - easy-to-use interfaces. Books I have been reading
Of particular interest, the latter two books have mentioned the cruciality of the browser Back button - DO NOT BREAK ITS BASIC FUNCTIONALITY. One of the follow-up advice is to not open new window for links. The argument is primarily to give users/visitors "Backability" - if you open a new window, it won't have the browse history of the old window, thus losing the Back option to trace one's path of navigation.
However, here is my personal experience. I navigate to a page that serves as a base. From that page extends out to various other external resources (i.e. other web sites, domains). I prefer to open new windows for each external resource browse so that the original base is maintaned. It is way too easy to get lost in the web of links (and one can travel twenty pages or so before deciding to U-turn) and Backing is too tedious. Many times I have not been able to trace back to the original base page, especially in the earlier days when browsers just tended to crash temperamentally. Closing a window (one branch of navigation) is much more efficient than Backing up several mouse clicks or key strokes.
Of course, I know I am a power user who loves a good spread of simultaneous navigation branches. I know most techies have a tendency to open multiple windows/tabs too.
In light of this, i typically use the same window when navigating anyway within the same site. When a link clearly routes to an external resource ,thus leaving the "base", I make it open a new window. The X over the Back.
What are some of your personal, and more importantly, observed, knowledge on this matter?
The melody of logic will always play out the truth. ~ Narumi Ayumu, Spiral
Disclaimer: I am not a usability guru.
The back button used to be a cornerstone of web app design but with these days of tabs and security sessions (such as internet banking apps), it doesnt figure as crucial anymore.
More and more web apps are getting more and more transactional in nature and therefore with http nature becomes more fire-hose or waterfall driven - the stateless sessions means that there is really no point and you cannot go back.
So I guess it all depends - Information Rendering or Transactional Processing ? That will determine how much you have to keep an eye out for that design of the back button.
~Softwaremaker (BLOG) M. Twain: "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead"
Softwaremaker:So I guess it all depends - Information Rendering or Transactional Processing ? That will determine how much you have to keep an eye out for that design of the back button.
Yes, the topic pertains more to Information request and rendering. At least from my own gathering of regular people using the Internet, they are able to recognise the difference between using a web site to do something versus purely view and read. Once you have transferred money to another bank account, or make a post in forums, or delivered an email, the Back button does nothing to reverse those actions.
The Back button here is an easy way to backtracking the chain of information links, so I am wondering just how much people in general still rely on it with the popularization of browser Tabs to maintain open copies of all navigation routes.