Does Back Button Hit Url Again
"How do I become dorsum? Just printing 'Back'. Navigation, this isn't great to be honest. And now it's brought me back to the women's. OK. Don't similar this."
During all our usability studies nosotros've observed how users, both novice and skilful, rely extensively on the browser "Back" push. Indeed, the "Back" button has long been a staple of web navigation, and users' oft decades-long experience with using it has acquired them to develop a very specific mental model of how information technology should bear.
Often this has severe usability implications when many common web design patterns — such as overlays, anchor links, dynamically injected views, hidden content, etc. — accept a default technical structure that breaks users' expectations for how the "Back" button is supposed to work. In fact, our criterion reveals that 59% of e-commerce sites gets at least i of these 4 user expectations wrong in terms of how they technically support apply of the "Dorsum" button.
The consequences of breaking the user's expectations of how the browser "Dorsum" push should behave can be dire. During our usability tests, information technology has been the direct crusade of abandonment, with users leaving exam sites with much swearing and cursing (even from the calmer test users).
In this commodity we share our large-scale usability inquiry and discuss our findings regarding:
- How users look the "Back" button to piece of work
- Upshot 1: Overlays & Lightboxes (37% of sites don't do this)
- Issue 2: Filtering & Sorting (27% of sites don't do this)
- Issue 3: Piano accordion Checkouts
- Effect four: Production Folio to Product List navigation
- 5 other views affected by "Back" button issues
- A simple solution to all of this
While the solution is simple, it's surprisingly often neglected in the implementation phase — fifty-fifty on the largest websites, as yous'll see below, and especially on mobile sites.
How Users Expect the "Back" Push button to Piece of work
The brusk version: users wait the "Back" button to accept them back to what they perceived to be their previous page. The notion of perception is the primal gene hither, since at that place's often a difference between what is technically a new page and what users perceive to exist a new folio — which can create discrepancies between where the user expects the "Dorsum" button to take them and where information technology actually takes them.
Generally, we've observed that if a new view is sufficiently unlike visually, or if a new view conceptually feels like a new folio, it volition be perceived every bit one — regardless of whether information technology technically is a new page or not. This has consequences for how a site should handle common product-finding and -exploration elements like overlays, filtering, and sorting. For example, if users click a link and 70% of the view changes to something new, almost volition perceive this to be a new folio, even if it'southward technically notwithstanding the aforementioned page, just with a new view loaded in.
Much the same fashion users have footling technical understanding of website security and, instead, go with their gut feeling (larn more), they similarly show little appreciation for the (frequently capricious and minute) distinctions of when a new view is technically a new webpage or just an expanded element on the existing page. And therein lies the rub: the browser "Back" button takes the user dorsum to their previously visited URL, which isn't necessarily the same as what the user perceived to be their previously visited page.
Users therefore often rely on an element's visuals, its context, and prior site experience when shaping their expectation of when something is a new webpage vs a slightly altered element on the same folio. Information technology'south the effect of this hidden snap judgment that determines where the user expects the browser "Dorsum" button to have them.
4 of the Most Mutual "Back" Button UX Pitfalls
Below is a walkthrough of the 4 website elements we most often detect to exist implemented in ways that suspension user expectations — that is, where the user isn't sent dorsum to what they perceived to be their previous folio when using the browser "Dorsum" push.
- Overlays & Lightboxes (37% of sites don't practice this)
- Filtering & Sorting (27% of Sites Don't Do This)
- Accordion Checkouts
- Returning to the Product List from the Product Page
(Our introduction to the UX blueprint process and workflow explains how UX designers determine and match user expectations.)
1) Overlays & Lightboxes (37% of Sites Don't Do This)
Overlays and lightboxes are by design meant to convey a new page that's laid on top of the previous page. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that users perceive these as separate pages and await the browser "Back" button to bring them back to the original page. Alas, during testing, the vast majority of user-initiated overlays at the tested sites did not close as the users clicked the browser "Dorsum" button, just instead sent them way back past the overlaid page.
This user expectation of "click 'Back', go out overlay" was observed during testing on both desktop and mobile sites, for all types of overlays. For example, site-initiated newsletter–sign upwardly requests, epitome gallery overlays, or alive conversation offers. Thus users should ever be exited from an overlay when clicking "Back", and returned to the page the overlay is on top of (not the previous page).
Information technology's worth noting that users' likely employ of the "Back" push to exit an overlay varies in proportion to how prominent the site-provided "Close" element is (due east.g., an "10" to exit the overlay). Very prominent "Shut" elements are likely to be used more than oftentimes by users compared to inconspicuous "Close" elements, and thus the strain on the "Back" push is reduced when overlays have highly prominent "Close" elements. Of form, users should yet be exited from the overlay when clicking "Back", even if provided with a prominent "Close" element.
"I don't know how to get out of this…'Back' push button? So that took me all the mode back to the hoodie-finding section [the product list]." A user tried to get out an image gallery overlay by tapping the "Back" button (first image), but she was taken dorsum to the product list instead (2d image). (The site-provided "Back" link was really hidden past the "Install App" ad.)
During mobile testing, we observed users having more difficulty endmost overlays using site-provided "Close" elements, oft due to hit area issues, with the "X" often being placed close to the edge of the screen, or an "Install App" advert roofing a "Close" element (see our article on Deemphasize 'Install App' Ads or Avoid Them Entirely). Thus mobile users are more probable to utilise the "Back" push button to close overlays compared to desktop users, and it's even more important that their expectation of exiting the overlay is supported when borer "Back".
ii) Filtering & Sorting (27% of Sites Don't Do This)
A user on Amazon taps "Back" subsequently applying 3 filters (outset image). This removes the last-practical filter, and it's at present shown that there are 2 filters applied (2nd image). Tapping "Dorsum" later applying filters should begin removing the applied filters.
Filtering and sorting generally yield an entirely new product list and users therefore perceive each of these actions every bit a distinct view. Even when the filters or sorting directions don't invoke a page reload, we still found during our large-scale usability written report of Product Lists & Filtering that the users mostly perceive each discrete iteration of their filtering equally a new view (nearly likely considering information technology is a user-initiated action and each iteration produces a new set of results).
This underscores how users don't make technical distinctions between what is and isn't a new page, but rather rely on what they perceive to exist a new page. Filtering and sorting, of both categories and search results, should therefore support that users flick back through each list state by using the browser "Back" button, and the sorting directions should too be inverse to the previously set sorting direction.
"I guess I'll go back…" A user at JBL sorted a product list of headphones by price from depression to loftier (first paradigm). After exploring a product on a product folio, she decided she wanted to keep browsing, and tapped to go back to the product list (2d image). However, she tapped twice: this led her to exist taken dorsum to the product listing and likewise changed the sorting direction — but the sorting management was only changed on the back end, as the sorting direction however read "Toll: (Depression To High)" (third epitome). As she said, "The filter [sorting direction] took away fifty-fifty though it says it is still working…They are non in filter [sort] society…The ones I was looking at, I can't find them." Such technical bugs were quite common during testing, and caused uncertainty for users with regards to product listing sorting.
However, it's of import to notation that during testing in that location were many instances of users tapping "Back" and a filter being removed or a sorting direction being changed — simply this wasn't communicated to users on the front end end. In other words, while tapping the "Dorsum" button technically did remove a filter or change a sorting direction, it appeared to users that nada had changed, every bit the (now removed) filters were still shown as practical or the sorting direction shown didn't friction match the actual sort gild of the product list. This obviously will lead to defoliation for users, who will wonder whether their "Back" push click or tap has been successful when there'south a mismatch betwixt their actions and what they see displayed in the interface.
If filtering or sorting is in an entirely split up interface — which is very common on mobile sites — it'southward critical that tapping "Dorsum" while in the interface acts every bit an "Leave" link would (i.e., similar to exiting an overlay). That is, users should be returned to the view they had been looking at just prior to opening the filtering or sorting interface, later on tapping the "Back" button from within the interface.
3) Accordion Checkouts
Contrary to what i might call up, accordion checkouts are not perceived as a one folio checkout with multiple collapsed sections. Instead the vast majority of users perceive them every bit a multistep process with summaries (more on how users perceive accordion checkouts). This can turn out problematic on sites where the piano accordion steps are technically implemented as a single page with i URL, as users wanting to go backwards to a previous checkout "stride" (e.chiliad., to edit previously entered information) will be sent all the fashion dorsum to the cart.
Instead, it'south primal that accordion checkouts ensure that the browser "Back" button takes users back to the previous viewed step — regardless if it'southward technically the same or a dissever page.
4) Returning to the Product List from the Product Page
"When you use the "Back" button, information technology takes you right dorsum to the beginning. Rather than where you left off." This user spent meaning time during testing scrolling down the Walgreens product listing refinding products after borer back from product pages.
Many users will await through a great number of products in lodge to detect what they are looking for, and this will include some back-and-along betwixt the product listing and the product details pages. Users who are non taken dorsum to where they were previously on the production list — for instance, back to the middle of the product list, rather than the top — accept to go through the irksome procedure of refinding the last place they were. During testing this was observed to be especially difficult for mobile users due to the more cumbersome procedure of scrolling.
When users are taken to the peak of the product listing, rather than to where they were earlier visiting the product page, they become disoriented and must refind where they were in the product list. Not only is this irksome — users must redo all the piece of work they had previously done past scrolling the product list again — but it can also be challenging to recall exactly where they were before visiting the product page (e.thousand., if the product list is a choice of blue dresses with similar but not identical styling, or similar-looking office chairs).
"When you use the "Back" button, it takes you right back to the kickoff. Rather than where you left off."
Users brought to the meridian of the product list may have to scroll through many items before they find the right identify in the list. Depending on the product-loading schema of the site, the difficulty in refinding the product can range from moderate to extreme.
Regardless of the product-loading schema used, if the process of refinding the correct place in the product list is too time-consuming and troublesome, users may well give up.
Only information technology doesn't stop there. The above four examples are typical mismatches where users often await one thing to happen nevertheless sites are implemented in a fashion that causes something else to happen. However, this type of misalignment goes beyond those common examples. Generally you should lookout out for all new views states initiated by the user which either wait like, or conceptually feel like, a separate folio.
When it comes to overlays, filtering, or sorting, testing shows that how users expect the "Back" push button to deport is consistent, and thus what should be shown to users after clicking "Back" is clear-cut. There are, however, other views users encounter during production finding and exploration where what should be shown to users later clicking the "Back" button isn't so obvious. Five of these are discussed beneath.
5 Other Views Affected past Browser "Back" Button Bug
When it comes to overlays, filtering and sorting, accordion checkouts, and going dorsum to the product list from a product page testing shows that how users wait the "Back" button to behave is consistent, and thus what should be shown to users later clicking "Back" is clear-cut. There are, yet, other views users run across during product finding and exploration where what should be shown to users after clicking the "Dorsum" button isn't so obvious. Five of these are discussed below.
Note: this list isn't meant to be exhaustive, but more illustrative of "gray" areas where special consideration should be given to how the "Back" button should perform in a given context.
- Multistep processes within a folio
- Expanding content
- Anchor links
- Truncated content
- Variations on the production page
1) Multistep Processes Within a Page
i) Multistep processes within a page. A user during a previous round of testing on Sears was interacting with a multistep shipping figurer on a production page (the "Delivery Options" box). He went through several steps, earlier clicking the browser "Back" button. However he was simply scrolled up to the height of the folio, rather than beingness taken to the previous step in the shipping reckoner, equally he had expected. He and then clicked the site-provided "back" link in the aircraft computer and was able to step backwards through the procedure.
Information technology's frequently difficult to determine what to show users after they click the "Back" button when they're interacting with a multistep process embedded within a page — for case, shipping estimators, product-finding wizards, questionnaires, etc. While some users may presume they'll be taken to the previous page, others will assume they'll be taken to the previous step in the procedure.
The blueprint of the embedded process itself likely highly influences user expectations. For example, when a process takes up more than 50% of an interface — which volition very often be the instance on mobile — many users are likely to expect that after clicking "Back" they'll encounter the previous footstep in the procedure, non the previous page.
All the same, the length of the process is also a factor here. It's not hard for users to click back through, for instance, a 3-step procedure, even if they had expected the "Back" button to have them to the previous folio. Hence the effect of forcing all users to do this aren't and so grave. If, on the other hand, the process is lengthy — for case, a 7-pace process — and so the act of clicking dorsum becomes much more tedious if, for example, users accept to click dorsum through 6 divide views to finally become back to the previous page they were on.
Lastly, if the embedded wizard will lose any significant amount of data the user has typed when the dorsum button is used, then the consequences of not taking users to the prior step too increase greatly.
Thus, the size and prominence of the embedded procedure, the length of the procedure, and any potential information loss of large amounts of user-provided data should be considered when deciding whether each step in the process should accept its ain split URL (requiring users to click dorsum through each step in the process) or non (where clicking "Back", even if a user is several steps into a process, returns the user to the previous folio, or alternatively exits them from the process).
2) Expanding Content
2) Expanding content. In i of our beginning rounds of testing of navigation, a user was exploring image thumbnails in IKEA'due south "Seating Solutions". Each thumbnail expanded to fill the entire page width when clicked. Having expanded the first thumbnail (first image), the user expanded another thumbnail, simply and then wanted to go back to the first image, and clicked the browser "Back" button (second image). The "Back" button notwithstanding took him all the way dorsum to the principal category page, rather than back to the start image he expanded (third prototype), equally the expanded options weren't role of the browser history.
Expanding content could include elements such as thumbnails expanding to larger images, or a line of text expanding to a paragraph. Yet, the expanded content doesn't appear to the finish user the manner an overlay does, where the page background is dimmed, and it's quite clear that ane page is "overlaid" on another. Therefore, with expanding content users could reasonably interpret the expanded content as either a new view or only the aforementioned view, with some content that's been inverse.
Not using expanding content, simply instead switching to an overlay, where it'south clear what to accept users to when they click the "Dorsum" button (i.e., exit them from the overlay and render them to the page they were on), may exist the easiest solution in some contexts (if both UI types are otherwise equally attractive to use). Otherwise, similar to multistep processes embedded in pages, much depends on how prominent the expanding content is. If it takes upward a large part of the interface and then many users will interpret it as a separate folio, and thus each piece of content should accept its own separate URL.
three) Ballast Links
3) Anchor links. A user on a Target product page tapped the review star average at the top of the page (first paradigm), and was jumped down to the reviews department (second epitome). Being satisfied with the reviews, the user tapped "Back" but wound upwardly in the production list, rather than dorsum at the superlative of the product page as she intended (third paradigm). She refound the product list detail she was interested in, tapped to go back to the product page, and then added the product to her cart.
When information technology comes to ballast links, much depends on whether users are immediately jumped down the folio when the anchor link is tapped or if they are smoothly scrolled to the new position on the page. Testing reveals that if users are jumped downwards the page, then tapping "Back" should return them to the previous position on the page.
For example, if a user is jumped down to the reviews department after borer a reviews star average at the top of the product page, then they should be returned to the top of the production folio when "Back" is tapped. This is due to the fact that when users are jumped downwardly a page, they tend to lose overview of where they are later the jump, and they can recollect they are indeed on an entirely new page (especially on mobile sites). Returning them to where they originally were when they tap "Dorsum" ensures that they don't get also disoriented.
However, it'due south less clear-cut if a user is smoothly scrolled downwards the page. Since users are scrolled down the page, they retain an overview of where they came from as they become to a new location. Therefore they're much less likely to completely lose overview compared to users who are jumped downwardly the page.
Thus, some users who've been smoothly scrolled to a new position on a page may feel like a site isn't meeting their expectations if after they tap "Dorsum" they aren't brought back a page, but rather returned to their previous location on the page. As they've been smoothly scrolled, they know where they are — they could hands scroll up if they desire to, simply by tapping "Back" they're signaling their intention to go back a page instead. (Note that it's recommended that users always are smoothly scrolled, rather than jumped, when borer an anchor link.)
Thus, the detail context in which the "Back" button would be tapped after a user has been smoothly scrolled after tapping an ballast link should be taken into business relationship. If a user is on a mobile site, and information technology'due south a very long product page, and there's no "Dorsum to height" option, then it likely makes sense to accept users to the anchor link that was tapped, rather than back a page, when they tap the "Back" push button.
Alternatively, if in that location are many ballast links on a folio (pregnant a user could potentially bounciness around the page for awhile when tapping "Back", if many of the anchor links have been tapped), or if the page isn't very tall, then taking users dorsum to the anchor links could be disruptive, and it may just be better to return them to the previous folio instead.
4) Truncated Content
4) Truncated content. A user at Overstock was exploring a product page, and in the procedure she tapped to aggrandize truncated content (offset image). Ready to get back to the product listing, she scrolled to the top of the page and tapped "Back" (second paradigm). Still this brought her dorsum to the content she had just been viewing in the middle of the folio (third image). She tapped "Dorsum" once again and this time was returned to the product list. Taking users back to a link they tapped to expose truncated content results in a jarring user feel.
Truncated content that's expanded when users tap a link or button shouldn't exist a split URL that users revisit when they tap "Back". For example, it'south quite common on mobile product pages to offer a couple of lines of text or a paragraph of the product description, and then hide the rest behind a "More" link. While this can make product pages more scannable, users should be taken back to the previous page, rather than dorsum to the previous content, when they tap "Back".
Expanding truncated content isn't enough of a "view change" where users would wait to be taken back to that area of the page when tapping "Back". Consider also giving users more of an overview of where they are when they tap to aggrandize the content by smoothly expanding the new content (e.g., by gracefully expanding the content, rather than abruptly jumping to the new content).
5) Variations on the Product Page
5) Variations on the production page. "OK that's abrasive…Just trying to get back to the lipstick folio where we were [the product list]. Am I just not holding it [the browser "Back" button] downward right?" A user at Sephora tapped the "Back" button multiple times but nothing seemed to happen, beyond the page moving up slightly (showtime image). She then opened her browsing history by holding the "Back" push, and was able to return to the production list this style (second image). Prior to tapping the "Back" button the user had been exploring the colour swatches, and from the browser history it appears Sephora had implemented each color variation equally a separate URL. Yet the product paradigm never changed for the user when she tapped "Dorsum" (but it had when she was initially exploring the swatches).
Product variations should be combined into i product listing item. Users can then explore the variations on the product page. Whether or non those variations should accept carve up URLs, however — and thus users would step back through each previous variation they had already explored when borer "Back" — again depends on the context.
When there are generally few product variations, in particular color, for users to consider, and then having them as separate URLs may exist the best pick, as most users wouldn't accept to tap "Dorsum" more than a few times to get to the actual previous page (often the product list or search results page). While some users will be slightly annoyed at having to tap back 2 or 3 times to get back to the previous page, others will likely be more than severely annoyed if they tap "Back" to go to a previously viewed variation and are instead kicked off the product page entirely.
This could go a much more than confusing feel if, for example, they're not returned to where they had previously been in the production list — forcing them to refind the product they had only been viewing.
If each variation has its own separate URL, however, it's critical that the product prototype changes subsequently each tap of the "Back" button. Otherwise, users will exist tapping "Back" with no indication that anything is happening in the interface (even if they are technically seeing different URLs). This is a recipe for disaster, as almost users will assume the site is "stuck" or will just be unclear why it appears that their deportment are having no effect.
If, however, in that location are dozens of variations — for example, lipstick shades — then it can get a more deadening exercise to step back through potentially dozens of "pages" to finally get back to the previous page the user was on. If it's decided that tapping "Dorsum" skips previously viewed variations and instead sends users back to the previous page they were on, then information technology's disquisitional that users are returned to where they were in the product listing (if that was the previous folio) then that refinding the production is easy. A list of "Recently Viewed" items could exist helpful as well.
The Solution
The skilful news is that HTML5 provides for a relatively straightforward solution: the HTML5 History API. More specifically, the history.pushState() function allows a site to invoke a URL alter without a page reload, meaning the site tin marshal the browser "Back" button behavior to friction match user expectations. (The reverse is besides possible: to change the URL without invoking an entry in the user's history.)
At Skechers.com the "Load More" implementation actively addresses the "Back" button issue by rewriting the URL each time users click the "Load More than" button. Consequently, every bit users click the browser "Back" button on a product page they are taken back to the right position in the product list (e.k., to "page 3").
This means that when opening, for example, an overlay, the site can invoke a history change in the user's browser, allowing the user to "go back" from the overlay view by using the browser "Back" button. And this of course goes for anything, including user-initiated overlays and lightboxes, AJAX-based pagination, filtering and sorting of lists, accordion checkouts — any chemical element which the user would expect to take invoked a browser history merely technically hasn't.
Therefore, use the history.pushState() to create a new entry in the user's browser history for any view that the user volition perceive as a new page (i.due east., whatever view that is sufficiently different visually or conceptually to be perceived every bit such). This way, you can ensure that site behavior and user expectations marshal.
In summary: Apply history.pushState() to make certain your site invokes "Dorsum" push button behavior that aligns with the user's expectations. Specifically, ensure that any visual change the user will perceive as a new page is added to their browsing history, regardless of whether information technology's technically a new page or not. This includes, only is not limited to:
- Overlays/lightboxes
- Filtering and sorting selections
- Accordion checkout steps
- Product list location
Additionally, some new views are "grey areas", and the prominence of the view and other factors demand to be considered when deciding whether to implement the new view as a new "folio". These include
- Multistep processes within a page
- Expanding content
- Anchor links
- Variations on the product page
Truncated content should in general never be implemented every bit a new "page" using history.pushState().
Users rely on an chemical element'due south visuals, its context, and prior site feel when shaping their expectation of when something is a new webpage vs. is a slightly contradistinct element on the aforementioned page. Information technology's therefore disquisitional to support users' "Dorsum" button expectations to avoid unintended detours and changes that during testing were oft a direct cause of abandonment. Despite the severity of the effect and the somewhat simple solution, 59% of sites that don't support at least one of the 4 cadre "Back" button expectations.
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Source: https://baymard.com/blog/back-button-expectations
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