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Redesigning The "Back" Button
TheMatt writes "Nature Science Update is reporting today about research by New Zealand scientists on redesigning how the "Back" button works in your browser.
They point to the fact that the current "Back" is more of an "Up" in a stack of pages. They propose a system that records all pages visited. A good summary page of their efforts in web navigation (including a interesting thumbnail-style "Back" menu) can be found on their page."
The average web browser's "back" feature is almost the only software feature in existence that is universally understood, and works as advertised. If it aint broke...
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
For the labelling:
I prefer to think of my "back" button as working like a paper book. I generally don't flip pages "up" when going to a previous page, so the "back" terminology is friendly to me.
As for the idea:
All I really need the back button to do, for better efficiency, is to skip posted forms, that's all I want. What did I miss in that article that really make their system stand out from stacking? I like my stacks dammit.
By using script to change it to a "Stay-Here" button. Those are the sites you make a point of never bookmarking, or ever intentionally visiting again.
No, I don't think you do. Try the following:
1) Go to the Slashdot main page at http://slashdot.org
2) Go to the discussion about the back button.
3) Click your back button and go back to the main page
4) Click on the link to the discussion about Microsoft being its own worst enemy.
5) Now try to use your back button to get back to the discussion about the back button. On both Mozilla 1.2.1 and IE 6, that piece of data is gone. You go back to the slashdot main page and then back to the site you visited before slashdot. It is a feature I've been annoyed with for awhile.
At the end of the day, I can't just hit alt+- and revisit every page I've been to.
Why is it gone? Because you went "up" in the directory hierarchy to the main slashdot page and so it erased the back button discussion.
I can get to the page in the history of course. And as I read the article, that's really what they are talking about (at least as I understood it): integrating the history into the back button so that you can more easily retrace your steps.
At least that's what I think they are talking about.
The first thing I thought as I was reading the article was, as everyone else has commented, "how is this different?"
It really *is* different; the problem is that the article explains things very poorly. Here's the difference:
With normal browsers, when you click the back button to a previous page, and then follow a new link on the previous page, the page you were on before you clicked the back button and followed a new link, is removed from the list. This is what they mean by "stack" behavior.
What these guys are proposing is that every time you visit a page, it goes into the back list. Thus if you are on, say, page 2, and click the back button to page 1, then follow a link to page 3, the list stored in the back button is 1 - 2 - 3, and you will go back to page 2. In the current system, the list stored would be 1 - 3; page 2 is gone from the list and no longer available via the back button.
So now you know. Regardless, this behavior is already available in I.E. 5.x and above via the History explorer bar. A simple sort by Order Visited Today gets the list exactly as proposed by the article. Except for the thumbnails, however, which is a very good touch.
Personally, I think it would be best to have *two* such buttons; one that has stack behavior (current "back" button), and another that has the proposed temporal behavior; perhaps as a history pull-down menu.
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
I think perhaps the button with the problem isn't the back button, but the forward button. Consider:
1) Go to the Slashdot main page at http://slashdot.org
2) Go to the discussion about the back button.
3) Click your back button and go back to the main page
Note: the forward button is active
4) Click on the link to the discussion about Microsoft being its own worst enemy.
5) Now try to use your back button...
The forward button is active again.
The problem isn't with the back button. Its that the forward button doesn't give you options. This can be implemented by considering each website a node in a tree structure. As you visit a hyperlink you go up the tree. When you click back, you go down the tree one step. Forward will bring you up the tree again, but will pick a default unless you specify which branch to follow (to be implemented).
The only problem is that the forward button is typically implemented so that it gives you a list of items to pick so that if you hit back 3 times, you would see the 3 web pages you just visited in reverse order in the list. I think it could be adequately implemented with expanding menus (but this is a UI pain-in-the-ass!).
Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
I don't think it has anything to do with going "up in the heirarchy" to the slashdot main page on any web site.
1. type in www.slashdot.com
2. type in www.yahoo.com
3. hit back
4. type in www.msn.com
Now, try to get to www.yahoo.com using the back button. See? Same thing, no site organization or heirarchies involved anywhere.
Rather, the problem is that the back and forward buttons move you within a linear chain of pages independent of the sites they are on. If you go back in that chain and then type in a new URL, you've truncated off the tail end of that chain and replaced it with the new page.
I've been aware of this effect or years, but I never considered it a problem that required a solution.
Methinks the researchers doth smokest too mucheth. That or they're desperate for more researchbucks(TM).
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Does anybody remember the OS/2 Warp (3.0) system web browser?
...
I do.
It had a complete Web page showing all the links and hyper links that you visited.
The first page was at the root level, then each link from that page was nested, with each subsequent link nested in turn. Each link was shown with the page title and was a link so you could re-visit that page.
After a few hours it was interesting to see your browsing process. First you were here, then you went there, and there, and
I miss that feature. It showed Web browsing in a non-linear fashion.
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I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.