
Why Does Backspace Go Back A Page? - AndyBaker
http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/53176/why-does-backspace-go-back-a-page-this-behavior-is-so-frustrating
======
commandar
It's just terrible UI design on so many levels.

* It uses a text-input key in a modal way, when no other unmodified text keys are used modally in a web browser.

* Shifting between modes can happen inexplicitly and unintentionally.

* It's potentially destructive.

Add this all up and you have a recipe for users unintentionally and
unexpectedly losing data. That's bad enough on its own.

The fact that the justification for it appears to be "because somebody made a
poor UI decision 20 years ago and people don't like change" is inexcusable.

~~~
raverbashing
> "because somebody made a poor UI decision 20 years ago and people don't like
> change"

And now they did a poor UI decision by making a swipe gesture go back

Which would be ok if it wasn't for the fact that sometimes when scrolling (on
anything that has 2 dimensions) you will accidentally swipe back.

~~~
danabramov
I use it all the time in Safari and love it. In Chrome it's less obvious when
it is being triggered though.

~~~
raverbashing
Yes, in Safari there's a more obvious visual indication.

I suspect that back and forth in Safari may be non-destructive as well (though
I can't confirm this right now)

One of the things that makes it easy to swipe back by mistake is the apple
trackpad, so I suspect Safari developers are aware of this and added the
indication

~~~
kalleboo
> I suspect that back and forth in Safari may be non-destructive as well
> (though I can't confirm this right now)

I just tried swiping back and forth with this text in the Hacker News comment
box and it didn't lose the content. I'm pretty sure I've had issues before, I
think in relation to pages loaded by POST.

------
reitzensteinm
This was particularly infuriating back when browsers would commonly lose input
state when going back then forward. For years, long after that was resolved, I
still wrote anything longer than a single sentence in notepad.

Even if this is kept for inertial reasons (I do make use of it on a trackpad
myself), I think as soon as you interact with any kind of text input it should
be disabled for the page.

~~~
ygra
Stack (Overflow|Exchange) put up a modal dialog if you started writing
something and then change the page. Which is annoying when you just want to
navigate away because you're not going to answer anymore, but in most cases
solves this problem quite nicely.

Disabling the key under certain circumstances is usually a support nightmare
when trying to explain people that »Backspace goes back to the previous page,
except there is text in any input field on the page that you entered, in which
case it does nothing. Oh, but the back button in the toolbar still works, as
does the side button on your mouse.« (The same problem with disabled UI
controls that usually do not say _why_ they are disabled. Some things, e.g.
Copy being disabled when there is no selection, are easy enough to figure out
but others not so much at times.)

------
RyanZAG
On Firefox:

    
    
      Go to about:config
      Search for browser.backspace_action
      Set it to 2
    

All fixed. It is disabled by default in Linux, but someone surely made a
mistake and forgot to turn it off by default in Windows in some misunderstood
concept of 'compatibility'.

~~~
sp332
Firefox follows conventions of the various platforms, even for things like
menus. In Linux, "Options" is under the "Preferences" menu, while on Windows
it's under "Tools".

~~~
jhoechtl
In Linux, "Options" is called "Preferences" and is under the "Edit" menu,
while on Windows it's under "Tools".

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rpdillon
The whole premise is focusing on a symptom rather than the real issue. I
happen to love backspace, because having to press a chord, half of which is
requires my hand to move the arrow keys, is a major cache-miss for an action
as common as navigating back.

But none of that even matters. The real question is:

Why do browsers not have an interface for configuring keyboard shortcuts yet?

And while they're at it, add an interface to customize whether or not
JavaScript in web pages can override certain shortcuts. Not being able to
rebind C-w, C-t, C-S-t, space, backspace, etc. has been a huge frustration for
ages. One of the reasons I use Firefox is that it has a robust enough
extension mechanism to support add-ons like KeySnail, but the fact the key
rebinding isn't core functionality is just embarrassing.

~~~
nfoz
Yeah I think it's a huge problem that javascript/the DOM allow a page to
_have_ shortcuts and control over page navigation. This is so wrong IMO; the
user agent should be in control. Because I am in control of my user agent.

~~~
ygra
Then it gets really hard to implement your own text box, if you cannot catch
things like Backspace, etc. I think those things are relics because the web
evolved rather haphazardly from a document display environment to an
application development environment.

~~~
nfoz
That "evolution" should not have happened. Maybe there's no sense in lamenting
it now, except I think it's worth recognizing that we're still very much in
need of both a reasonable web-like document display environment _and_ a
reasonable cross-platform untrusted-application-sandbox-VM environment.

As for implementing your own textbox that catches backspace, that's a great
example of the type of thing that web pages should not be doing. User agents
should be responsible for the existence of text-entry fields, that way they
can serve the text-entry needs of the user. Different users construct text
differently. Also the consistency of UI of allowing users to know how a
textbox works (because it's not redefined for each site) is a UI achievement
that we have now lost.

------
thiht
I like this feature actually, because I'm used to it. It's simpler and quicker
than using Alt + ←. I'm kinda pissed when this behavior is overridden (ie.
Google Search). To be honest, this:

"On some pages (but not all) when I want to erase the last few characters I
just typed, I tap Backspace several times. Tap tap tap. And then, lo-and-
behold, my browser is leaving the page I was on and going back in the tab
history."

never happened to me, and I'm really wondering how the asker manages to lose
the focus on a text field while he types.

~~~
aaronchall
I'm the asker. You must be one of those cursor focus savants. Do you actually
get any work done? If so, are you a super genius whose brain always has extra
clock cycles to check that the cursor is blinking next to where you're
intending to erase? Or are you a very slow user? Or do you not bother fixing
your mistakes when you type?

~~~
thiht
It wasn't a rhetorical question and I didn't want to sound aggressive, I'm
sorry you took it that way. I didn't even think of the touchpad issue for
example.

------
bjourne
For disabled users backspace to go back is tremendously useful. On keyboards
with Alt Gr, pressing Alt + Left Arrow requires pressing down keys with both
the left and right hand simultaneously. It's not possible if one of your arms
is paralyzed. Targetting the back button (which btw, is getting smaller and
smaller i newer browsers) with the mouse to click can also be a very time
consuming task if you are suffering from involuntary shakes.

Some people actually surf using tab to focus links, then click with return and
goes back with backspace. For them removing the backspace as back function is
a big step backwards (haha) in usability. Yes, one could argue that they
should just install vimperator and some other addons to make the browser
usable with their particular disability. But most handicapped users are just
as clueless as normal ones and have no idea how to customize their software.

~~~
Cyykratahk
I agree that backspace is useful as a back button (I use it that way), and
also that there should be an option to change the setting (although, on which
the default should be, I cannot decide).

But wasn't StickyKeys (and other assistance-related settings) created to fix
the keyboard modifier problem for users with low mobility?

------
rainedin
On the plus side, it's a large key that does not require simultaneous key
presses: holding down multiple keys at the same time is not user friendly,
especially for noobs.

The backspace frequently has a backwards arrow printed on it, so symbolically
it feels right.

Personally I find web pages that break common shortcuts, and navigation
paradigms more irritating. Google+ changes the behaviour of CTRL+PGUP/PGDOWN,
some sites hijack the spacebar (normally I use for paging), some sites hijack
CTRL+CLICK that I use to open links in new tabs.

I never hear people bemoaning the use of the Home key to go to the home page,
and its different behaviour in text input areas. But I can appreciate some
people don't like it how the controls appear to change, depending on what you
are doing, it's far from obvious for some people.

I find The issue with text controls in browsers, is one of focus, thinking
that you are in text area, when you aren't etc. The browsers could really help
here, by making it really obvious which form element has the focus. It's
doubly annoying when you are have focus on a flash component, and none of your
keyboard shortcuts feel like they work. I'm a keyboard fan, but really without
having some exotic setup, you are reliant upon the mouse with the mainstream
OSs because of irritations like these. Which is really irritating for me when
I'm trying to do simple things with just the keyboard sitting on the sofa with
a computer connected to the TV.

~~~
kijin
> _holding down multiple keys at the same time is not user friendly,
> especially for noobs._

The problem is that "noobs" generally don't care about keyboard shortcuts at
all, especially if there's already a large button in the top left of the
screen (or the bottom of the device) that does exactly what they want to do.
The only keyboard shortcuts my father remembers, for example, are Ctrl+C and
Ctrl+V, and he's been using computers for 25 years.

Keyboard shortcuts need to be simple enough to be memorable, but also not too
simple so that you don't press it unintentionally. A single key that is also
commonly used for a different purpose doesn't seem to fit that criterion.

~~~
rainedin
I"d hardly say hitting one key with your finger is a keyboard shortcut. Some
noobs, hate the pointer when they first encounter it, and will avoid it if
possible.

------
eik3_de
To avoid loss of form input, there are several auto-save-to-localstorage
solutions like [http://garlicjs.org/](http://garlicjs.org/). Just add data-
persist="garlic" to the form tag and everything is saved until successfully
submitted.

~~~
aidos
Which is also potentially annoying behaviour - often you don't want the state
to be saved. We could solve it adding a 'reset' button to our forms. Haha - do
browsers still support those?

~~~
mercer
Has it actually annoyed you or have you heard of someone being annoyed by it?
Because I can't imagine it being annoying. Most of the time, saving form input
is desired. The few times where it's not, it's easily solved by one of the
many ways to remove all the text.

~~~
aidos
It has, yeah. Wasn't it behaviour added to Firefox once some years ago? I
recall a situation where my less technical other half was struggling to submit
a form because of this behaviour. Granted, it was due to a poor implemention
that didn't support two dropdowns where one depended on the other, but it was
confusing and annoying.

As a developer it's annoying because it slows down testing - again edge case,
but I've seen it before, and it annoyed me.

If it was the standard behaviour and all controls were sensitive to it, that
would probably be different.

There's also the security aspect to keep in mind. So now when someone comes
back to a page on your machine, might they see something you didn't want them
to see?

------
GazNewt
Gotta disagree here. I never have a problem with this useful long-standing
feature.

~~~
userbinator
As another one who uses this feature often, I can remember how I discovered it
a _long_ time ago: accidentally pressing it once on a page and thinking "oh,
that's useful", then regularly using it after that.

On the other hand, I'd rather Alt+Left be disabled inside text inputs, as I
have quite a few times accidentally went back while trying to move the cursor.

The odd thing is that this shortcut is not mentioned in the Back button's
tooltip of neither Firefox, IE, Opera, nor Chrome.

------
strictfp
I get really frustrated with the comments that say "but backspace doesn't do
that when you're in a text control". To me thats completely missing the point.
Can anyone explain why anyobe would make such a comment? Is it just pedantism
with a lack of understanding of the bigger picture? These type of comments
drive me crazy, and I only ever see them in programmer fora.

~~~
PavlovsCat
> Can anyone explain why anyobe would make such a comment?

Because the original story doesn't add up. If you're typing and press
backspace to delete some characters you _just_ typed, without some additional
tab pressing, mouse clicking, or Javascript shenanigans on behalf of the
website, the browser won't go back in history. That's just a cold hard fact.

~~~
chilldream
If people are getting mad at going back a page by accident, then they are
going back a page by accident. It's happened to me, and while I'm still not
entirely sure why, I really don't _care_ why. The "Self Destruct" button
shouldn't be next to the "Make Phone Call" button.

------
wila
Backspace in some browsers goes to the previous page because that used to be
the standard.

Nowadays we enter a lot of data in a web page and having to explain to an end
user that the browser works differently depending on where the cursor is might
be confusing for them.

A decade ago most people just used the internet for consuming the page
(browsing), sometimes entering a few lines of data. Having the back button go
back in your navigation makes sense in that respect as you are "browsing", not
creating.

Re: "it's totally destructive", actually it is not destructive, you can hit
backspace in the middle of your edits, go to the previous page, then go to the
forward arrow in your browser and voila.. the text you entered is still there!

Of course that isn't true on every website as quite often the site developer
is trying to do "smart" things. It is however a standard html feature and I
just did that here while typing my text and it works fine on hacker news.

Personally I like the back button in my browser to go back in my browsing
history, as mentioned by others, this is configurable in firefox.

------
woogle
I think the biggest problem here is a context one. When you use a shortcut
inside a software, you don't (usually) think about the field focused. As I,
like most of us here, use an IDE or a code editor every day, I think best
context-free shortcuts involve more than one special key.

Even the alt + arrow shortcut is a bad idea because it mean "go to the
beginning of the word" in Mac OS. I had very bad issue with the CMD + Arrow in
my Chrome, because when I type I don't use the mouse.

Ctrl + CMD + Arrow is the perfect shortcut for me (and I think, for every
XCode users).

------
aaronchall
Consider how most users interact with a page. I personally click to highlight
text, use my mouse wheel to set the page just so, and I type. A lot. And I'm a
fast typer. And I hit backspace. A lot. Why should I lose all my work because
I'm not a cursor focus savant, or someone who never types? Because if you're a
typer, this affects you. This happened to me at my job, causing me to lose
hours of search and fill-in information, information that is necessary for me
to keep my job. And it loses a lot of productivity for a lot of other people
as well. Learn to use [Alt]+[←]. I do it one-handed all day long. And if your
needs are so specialized that you require a single-button solution, you should
be able to get that by changing a setting from the default, and not forcing
everyone else to live with the ejector seat button doubling as the turn-
signal.

------
kijin
PSA for anyone who is tempted to copy and paste the jQuery example posted by
'pathfinder': Make sure you account for "radio" and "checkbox" input types.
They don't handle the backspace key the same way an <input type="text"> or
<textarea> would.

------
Agathos
"Back in 9/26/95, the Backspace key was mapped for go up one directory in
Windows Explorer. This could be the reason why Microsoft also used the
Backspace key on their IE for back/up a page. Of course, this is pure
speculation on my part :)"

So this is leftover damage from Microsoft's bizarre campaign to fuse Internet
Explorer with Windows Explorer? Why do I suddenly want to hurt someone?

~~~
ygra
Consistency across applications isn't a bad thing per se. Ask all those who
argue that emacs or vi keybindings should be available everywhere ;-)

------
rootinier
Safari removed that "feature" a while ago.

------
EGreg
I wanted to add that I use the backspace quite a lot, and have found the
opposite situation which might shed light on why Google likes it. When I hit a
google search in my history, hoogle quickly puts the text focus in their main
box so my backspace now starts erasing what I wrote rather than going further
in the history, and I consider doing another search

------
yread
Opera remembers text inputs (and caches pages) so going back and forth is
instanteous and doesn't lose your inputs

------
dipth
Ironically I've become so custom to using backspace for navigating back that I
constantly end up swearing when I use it on sites that hijack text-input like
Google for instance, where pressing backspace will focus on the search-field,
delete the last character and immediately perform a new search.

------
test1235
I suppose if you want to answer a question you have to understand the context,
and as with reproducing bugs, you have to know the steps to recreate the
problem.

It's not like they're being purposefully obnoxious - no more than when people
answer with, 'why would you want do that?'

------
cabalamat
Does backspace go back a page? It doesn't on my setup (Firefox 28.0 on Ubuntu
12.04).

~~~
sp332
Firefox on Linux doesn't by default. You can change it in about:config by
setting browser.backspace_action to 0.
[http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.backspace_action](http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.backspace_action)

------
nysv
My laptops have different keyboard layouts which leads me to often press
backspace in error when attempting to press page up/down keys.

I don't really care if it's the default or not, I would just want the option
to turn it off in Chrome.

------
matthewmacleod
I've only just noticed that Safari doesn't do this. I'm almost certain I used
to extensively use backspace for navigation; since starting to use a trackpad
almost exclusively, I've replaced that with swiping.

~~~
alirazaq
I prefer the swiping too. It's also unlikely that I would swipe two fingers
over the trackpad on accident where as the backspace not being in a text-
area's focus happens too often to be considered useful.

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lucb1e
It doesn't in Linux' Firefox by default and that's bloody annoying.

------
lukaseder
Isn't the number of occurrences of this behaviour directly proportional to the
amount of already-filled-in form fields?

\- "Murphy's Law"

------
brokenparser
It doesn't?

~~~
bliker
Chrome[1] and Firefox[?] and probably others on Linux do not have this
behavior enabled by default.

[1]
[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=144832](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=144832)

------
tbastos
Of course it had to be Microsoft's fault... they used to have no clue about UX
design.

------
hernan604
other shortcuts:

go back: alt+left arrow go forward: alt+right arrow

------
bjourne


