Back / Forward Buttons and Usability

Question

The back and forward buttons in a browser or application similar to the browser move in time (the sequence in which the user moves the pages), which may not correspond to the logical order of the pages. Are there any studies that have examined how this affects the user's mental model? Any thoughts on how to improve usability and reduce confusion?

Answer 1

Thereere several good areas of research aimed at improving usability of Back. One of them recalls that Back is more reminiscent of recently viewed pages than history:

• Greenberg S. and Cockburn A (1999) Go Back: Alternate Behavior for Web Browser Back Button. Proceedings of the 5th Annual Human Factors and Webcast, Held at NIST, Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA, June 3.

• Cockburn A, McKenzie B, and JasonSmith M (2002) Assessing Temporary Behavior for Web Browsers Back and Advanced Buttons. Eleventh World Wide Web Honolulu Conference, Hawaii, USA May 7-11.

Another research line is about facilitating the transition to the "key" pages in the "Back" sequence (namely, the pages where the navigation branches are located):

• Milic-Frayling N, Jones J, Rodden K, Smyth G, Blackwell A and Sommerer R (2004) SmartBack: User support in Back Navigation WWW 2004, May 17-22, 2004, New York, NY, USA.

• Orner D and MacKenzie IS (2006). Histree is a hierarchical reverse menu. IADIS WWW / Internet 2006 International Conference - Volume II

• Kaasten S and Greenberg S (2001). Integration Back, History and Bookmarks in web browsers. CHI 2001 • March 31 - April 5, 379-380.

While it was possible to think about the exact projects that the researchers tested, the general ideas in both research lines were expired for implementation in modern browsers, IMO.

Said that users are using Back to mean "Cancel." Actually, it is more likely that they use it to indicate "Cancel" (to cancel navigation, rather than entering data), and sometimes they use it to indicate "OK." In any case, this causes problems, especially in rich Internet applications. Ive argued that we need to accept the standard for Cancel separately from Back, if we are going to solve these problems. ( http://www.zuschlogin.com/?p=41 ).

Answer 2

There was a fairly extensive 2003 study on the use of crackers (logical navigation) and whether they increased usability behind buttons (temporary navigation). It is here .

Here's an article from Inside Firefox about how the back button interacted with tab browsing and some user interface confusion.

And here's another article about how people sometimes use Back to mean Cancel.

Hope this helps you!