
The Back Button is Not an Undo Button - makimaki
http://jrdodds.blogs.com/blog/2006/04/the_back_button.html
======
henning
Regardless of how people _should_ do something, you're forced to consider what
you know, based on experience, they _will_ do. You're not supposed to go off
the road and crash your car, but if you do, hopefully you won't run into
concrete dividers because a lot of times those have those plastic drum things
filled with water or sand or whatever.

Similarly, when one lane at an intersection gets a red light, the other lane's
light doesn't turn green for a second or two, just because people go through
yellow lights when they shouldn't and so cars could be in the intersection
when the light turns red.

------
jey
No, back _is_ undo on a certain level of granularity. You need to figure out
which actions in your application intuitively correspond to the "back"
operation, and make the back button actually do that. Undo could be for a
finer grained edits, like edits within a certain "page" of your app.

Seet the new GMail for a perfect example of how it should be done.

------
kajecounterhack
@jey: doesn't that mean that the back button isn't an undo button? Those
"finer grained edits" are undos. Navigating from page to page is what the back
button is about, and thats why well written ajax apps (like gmail) allow the
back button to navigate through various elements of a page (inbox, spam...etc)

Or does it? It used to just load your page to the inbox when you hit back
cause the pages were built into the ajax app. It shouldn't do that because
that limits the actual use of the back button.

~~~
pg
You don't have to say @jey. News.YC has nested comments.

------
mattmaroon
This is symptomatic of the pervasive ivory tower mentality. Good UI design is
about being intuitive for your users. If almost all of your users use the back
button as an undo, then make the back button function as an undo, and make it
do that well.

This is the same Gmail, "we'll force people to use tags even though they want
folders because we think tags are better" mentality that makes non-hackers
scratch their heads in wonder.

------
tipjoy
Yes, it is technically inaccurate for people to view the back button as an
undo. However until new browsers come out that are designed for web
applications, this will continue to be an issue regardless. As long as you
judiciously use AJAX - only use it to power a true 'app' - you may largely
overcome the issue, as people who feel they're working in an application may
not be as inclined to hit back when trying to undo.

------
sajidu
Most users think it is.

Ignore your users at your own peril...

