[thelist] Do I need a back link?

Jackson Yee jyee at vt.edu
Wed Nov 20 14:51:01 CST 2002


"aardvark" <roselli at earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:200211192333.gAJNXuSL006396 at leo.evolt.org...
> 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?

I usually don't do anything with JavaScript at all these days since all my
code is server-side, but even then, there's still not much point in making a
back link for a page of a report act like the back button of a browser.  My
usual closer for anything gallery/report/slide/documentation like is

<--- Back         ^ Top/Parent            Next ---->

It's the most intuitive method to navigate any hierarchical structure.

> 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...

There is a reason why the PowerPoint methodology is used so far though -
it's common, and effective.  It certainly doesn't fit every type of page,
but for its target audience, it works wonders.

> 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...

If they're casually browing, then they would indeed look for only points of
interest.  If they're reading something which contains information that they
already know to be pertinent to them such as this intranet project page,
then you can pretty much know that they'll read all of the page.  My comment
with large blue arrows was that unless the navigational structure is easily
seen and perceived, they'll be confused as to how to navigate from the end
of this page.  I remember a site I was looking at a while back using this
tiny 8x8 pixel image as navigation, and it took me forever to figure out how
to get to the next page because that image blended in so well with the rest
of the layout's color scheme.  Ever since then, I've realized that large
graphics are the way to go for navigation.

--
Regards,
Jackson Yee
jyee at vt.edu
http://www.jacksonyee.com/





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