[thelist] Do I need a back link?

aardvark roselli at earthlink.net
Tue Nov 19 17:34:01 CST 2002


> From: "Jackson Yee" <jyee at vt.edu>
>
> As Craig said, there's no harm in including a back link.  Before I got
[...]

i would like to take this opportunity to note that if the "Back" link
does not function *exactly* like the back button of the browser, you
may actually be creating a usability nightmare...

i'm speaking from experience here...

this means that if you are relying on JS and reading from the
history object, how do you handle for non-JS users?  does the link
not function at all, or not get drawn?

if it's not JS, then how do you determine the previous page without
a referrer or a variable passed to the current page? what if the user
came from a search engine to that page?

[...]
> Also, people who are inexperienced with computers will function
> *extremely* better if a back link is at the end of their reading.  As
> blind as users can be, they are quite attracted to large blue arrows
> which say "back", "previous," or "next" at the end of web pages.  It's
> only one more page element, so why not make everyone happy?

i would also caution on the use of previous/next...

unless the page flow you are in is decidedly linear (like a photo
gallery with images having a definite start and end), then you could
simply be adding to the horrible PowerPointification of the web...

people don't always surf a site in the linear fashion we expect, so
offering a 'next' or 'previous' can often confuse the issue...

given all that, i'm curious what makes you say that users are
attracted to large blue arrows at the end of web pages... my own
focus groups have often shown that that is not the case, and that
users often never make it to the end of the page, instead reading
only the first few lines and moving on...


--
Read the evolt.org case study
Usability: The Site Speaks for Itself
http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1904151035/evoltorg02-20
ISBN: 1904151035



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