[thelist] Back button issue with QueryString

[Howard Cheng]

I'm sorry, I really don't see the point of all this trying not to show the
error message again. I realize this is what your client is asking for, but
I think it's your job as the web developer to tell the client that this
idea is stupid, for the very simple reason that people expect the browser
to behave in a certain way and any time you deviate from what's expected,
that's bad usability. I think that when users encounter an error page and
then navigate to somewhere else on the site, when they hit the back button
enough times to get back to the error page, they'll remember that they had
an error there. In short, they may be using that as a "landmark" (ie, a
point of reference). By removing the error message, you're changing the
user's site experience. They may become flustered, thinking, "What happened
to the page where I had an error? I wanted to try something different but I
don't remember exactly what I was doing."

What does the client want in place of the error message anyway? A blank
screen? Site navigation only with the content area blank? It just doesn't
make any sense.

Anyway, that's my $.02, FWIW.


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Howard Cheng
http://www.howcheng.com/
howcheng at ix dot netcom dot com
AIM: bennyphoebe
ICQ: 47319315