4 ms·

As much as I hate bloated page sizes, breaking the back button is the absolute worst thing a website can do. It is a disgusting violation of the user's experien

by blt 8y ago

As much as I hate bloated page sizes, breaking the back button is the absolute worst thing a website can do. It is a disgusting violation of the user's experience. It's like locking the door behind a customer when they enter your store and then forcing them to jump through the window if they want to leave.

taeric 8y ago
This is, not surprisingly, overstated. In all of the cases where you used the back button and it didn't work. Yes. That sucked. There are, however, plenty of places where you did not even attempt to use the back button, and more than a few where it would be nonsensical. Purchased something? Want to repeat the purchase? What about sending an email? Yes, much of this is covered by "posts can't be 'backed' to." However, the point is still that there is a lot of scenarios where the back button doesn't work that you flat out don't notice. (And I say this as someone that hates the "forever scroll" pattern we seem to have adopted.)
- blt 8y ago
  Yes there are certainly situations where the back button becomes nonsensical. I'm talking more about things like a 30-image slideshow generating a trail of 30 URLs in the history, or (mainly) outright "dark pattern" sites that purposefully make it impossible to leave.
  - taeric 8y ago
    Agreed. My only assertion was that the position was over stated. Not that I disagreed with it. :)
Raidion 8y ago
If designing around the back button is a pain point because you have to implement some fairly complicated solution is a good sign your design needs work. I'm working on a corporate site now and it's a mess of buttons going to modals or just loading content in place, and getting the back button to work is a HUGE pain and I really wish the designers thought about functionality and not just how stuff looks.
- a3n 8y ago
  The designer is were probably rewarded for what they did.
nerdponx 8y ago
Why do websites do this?
- srtjstjsj 8y ago
  Do generate more onsite activity. If you leave the site the site doesn't make money off you. It's generally a way to generate mostly fake ad impressions to rip off advertisers.
  - nerdponx 8y ago
    As much as I want to share your cynicism, I doubt this keeps anyone on a given website for more than a few extra seconds.
- m3rc 8y ago
  You built something and then realize that it breaks if the user presses the back button so instead of fixing the original design you try to change the behavior of the back button.
- vinceguidry 8y ago
  Breaking the back button is an unfortunate consequence of SPA (single page application) frameworks like React. You'd be amazed at just how easy it is to do. Put a junior on a feature and unless there's process in place to look for back button breakage, it can easily find its way into production. Even if you have QA resources, browser history management is not going to be within their wheelhouse so all they can do is note that it's happening and maybe they can give you a rough idea of which feature caused it. Essentially, SPA architecture replace page loads with changing the DOM directly. Changes to the DOM don't change browser history unless you tell it to. Breakage can happen in two ways. First you can change things without updating browser history, or you can make changes that update history without actually changing the page. Both break the natural flow of the back and forward buttons. The easy answer is to tell devs to just make new page loads when necessary, but apps can complicate to the point where page loads mean a great deal of reloading stuff. Then the next answer given to devs is to not load lots of stuff, but loading lots of stuff is often dictated by business needs and is over the devs' heads. Good luck moralizing on business people. Once I saw how often such breakage slipped into the web app that I work on, I got a lot more patient with other websites. It's actually a really hard problem that I'd put right up there with cache invalidation and naming things. There's no established doctrine for browser history management.

by blt 8y ago

taeric 8y ago

This is, not surprisingly, overstated. In all of the cases where you used the back button and it didn't work. Yes. That sucked. There are, however, plenty of places where you did not even attempt to use the back button, and more than a few where it would be nonsensical. Purchased something? Want to repeat the purchase? What about sending an email? Yes, much of this is covered by "posts can't be 'backed' to." However, the point is still that there is a lot of scenarios where the back button doesn't work that you flat out don't notice. (And I say this as someone that hates the "forever scroll" pattern we seem to have adopted.)

blt 8y ago
Yes there are certainly situations where the back button becomes nonsensical. I'm talking more about things like a 30-image slideshow generating a trail of 30 URLs in the history, or (mainly) outright "dark pattern" sites that purposefully make it impossible to leave.
- taeric 8y ago
  Agreed. My only assertion was that the position was over stated. Not that I disagreed with it. :)

Raidion 8y ago

If designing around the back button is a pain point because you have to implement some fairly complicated solution is a good sign your design needs work. I'm working on a corporate site now and it's a mess of buttons going to modals or just loading content in place, and getting the back button to work is a HUGE pain and I really wish the designers thought about functionality and not just how stuff looks.

a3n 8y ago
The designer is were probably rewarded for what they did.

nerdponx 8y ago

Why do websites do this?

srtjstjsj 8y ago
Do generate more onsite activity. If you leave the site the site doesn't make money off you. It's generally a way to generate mostly fake ad impressions to rip off advertisers.
- nerdponx 8y ago
  As much as I want to share your cynicism, I doubt this keeps anyone on a given website for more than a few extra seconds.
m3rc 8y ago
You built something and then realize that it breaks if the user presses the back button so instead of fixing the original design you try to change the behavior of the back button.
vinceguidry 8y ago
Breaking the back button is an unfortunate consequence of SPA (single page application) frameworks like React. You'd be amazed at just how easy it is to do. Put a junior on a feature and unless there's process in place to look for back button breakage, it can easily find its way into production. Even if you have QA resources, browser history management is not going to be within their wheelhouse so all they can do is note that it's happening and maybe they can give you a rough idea of which feature caused it. Essentially, SPA architecture replace page loads with changing the DOM directly. Changes to the DOM don't change browser history unless you tell it to. Breakage can happen in two ways. First you can change things without updating browser history, or you can make changes that update history without actually changing the page. Both break the natural flow of the back and forward buttons. The easy answer is to tell devs to just make new page loads when necessary, but apps can complicate to the point where page loads mean a great deal of reloading stuff. Then the next answer given to devs is to not load lots of stuff, but loading lots of stuff is often dictated by business needs and is over the devs' heads. Good luck moralizing on business people. Once I saw how often such breakage slipped into the web app that I work on, I got a lot more patient with other websites. It's actually a really hard problem that I'd put right up there with cache invalidation and naming things. There's no established doctrine for browser history management.