Don't break the Back button

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Don't break the Back button

Monday, January 03, 2005

The web browser's BACK button is fundamental to web navigation. It accounts for 30% of all navigation actions. Breaking the back button is usually caused by one of these mistakes:

1. Launching new windows.
DON'T. It breaks the back button and it's annoying.

2. Forwarding to another page.
If you redirect requests from one URL to another, do it right or you'll break the back button.

3. Preventing caching.
Users want to press the back button even during online transactions, so don't try to stop the browser from caching. If your web application doesn't support the Back button, it's broken.

Make the world easier to navigate. Don't break your users' Back.

About the Author

I'm Chris McGrath, an intranet consultant in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I've been working on intranets since 1997, and on plain ol' web sites for even longer. I run One Intranets, the firm that co-created ThoughtFarmer -- an enterprise collaboration platform for Windows-based intranets.