Why there's no back button? (It does)
Created at: 2024-04-06
Last edited at: 2024-04-06
Home > Thoughts > Back Button
(This is a breadcrumb trail btw, the_more_you_know.gif)
After sailing my website towards the endless web sea (Hi Reader!), I noticed something pretty quickly, there's no back button on it, no logo to click to redirect to the main page, no navigation bar, just links to advance, did this was a intentional design choice? No... well, not quite, the template i use in Zim (About my site *wink*) has a nav bar but I didn't like how it looked then deleted it and I forgot to add a back button in it after uploading, so, I asked myself:
"Why am I complaining about a lack of a back button, if one already exists?"
If you are a avid browser connoisseur, you may have noticed there's a back button in the browser navigation bar (same applies if you are in mobile) so why we need more buttons that make the same thing? I'm not a graphic designer or a front-end developer, I can't give you an answer other than "why not?"
So I decided to search about the topic.
But first, a bit of my navigation ways, I usually open hyperlinks in another tab, it's more convenient for me, except when I wont stay on the website, which doesn't happen as much. So I end up with 5-10 tabs of the same website (sometimes the same page), which sometimes gets a bit annoying or, rarer, my desktop (yes, whole) crashes. Because of this habit, I don't really use back buttons that much. Anyway, now it's time to search.
I added some buttons for you to try it out, but remember your browser back button still there (or other tab)
After some research, apparently no one uses the back button[1], which is a bit of a surprise for me, and still didn't convinced me to change my layout to put one, because even so, on a website with a back button (in this case, breadcrumbs), studies still show that we would use the browser's back button and this would'nt impact overall navigation[2], so, why I, or maybe you, should add a back button or a breadcrumb trail on our websites?
Simply, it's acts as a map. Not as an actual map, but as a location marker.[3] If you already navigated through my site, maybe you have an mental map of it, but if you don't, a breadcrumb help with it, specially if you got into this site from another link outside the realm of my site, like from another website, someone recommending it to you or even a search engine (if you qualify, hello!), in these cases, the user can't navigate using the back button in the site in a easy way, just editing the link or the possibly chosen option, leaving altogether.
My website is pretty simple, just links, no fancy scripts, so the browser back button always works... unless its a [4] if you use the back button after clicking, it will take you back to the text, but not back the website, which can be annoying when you clicked on all of them (do it) and wants to go back to the website home, this would take at least 4 backs to return to the top site, and it just gets worse (or straight out undoable) the more complex the website gets. Double redirection links are the root of all evil. ☺
In my opinion, just do whatever you want with this information, I don't feel like adding something like this, my website is too simple to need it, but you do you, if you think it will help the users, do it, if you don't, so don't do it.
But maybe an image grows on the website which takes to index, who knows?
Thanks for reading, Reader.
wikimaster
< here's a back button just for you, think about it
For research purposes, I added the links to my sources (and flood your back history for argument purposes, enjoy.)
[1] https://dubroy.com/blog/my-chi2010-talk-a-study-of-tabbed-browsing/
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20170704195808/http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/52/breadcrumb.htm
[3]https://archive.uie.com/brainsparks/2005/09/26/value-of-breadcrumbs/
[4]http://www.zuschlogin.com/?p=41 (Honestly, not really good, read the update on the bottom of the site first)