Wiser words were never said.
EDIT: the following series of posts was originally part of a conversation in the Great Like Experiment 2017 thread. I know it appears as though I created this thread, but I did not. @wumpus decided to “move” it to its own thread, which he did without telling me. I would not have deemed this conversation worthy of its own thread, so I am sorry it has cluttered up your view, especially with a title this inane.
EDIT EDIT: Tom moved the posts back. Thanks Tom!
I clicked that link, and it took me to another one of your posts where you were responding to criticism of your UX skills. Then I clicked my back button, and instead of bringing me back here like it would have on any other website, it exited the thread.
But yeah, breaking the back button, who cares, just use search, amirite?
I don’t have time to explain basic web design to you. Standard back button behaviour is one of the most fundamental things you should never, ever break. Go learn about it and if you still have this question let me know.
Which is not what I did, but never mind!
Really, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have engaged with you in the first place. Not sure what I expected from Mr. “When my users give me feedback, I tell them they’re wrong!”
When a page is very long (like these that have infinite scroll) it would be nice to have anchors, so #page1, #page2, #page3 and allow it to browse.
But is true that I don’t know if the user will find that useful or confusing.
I have never meet a user or spoken to a user since 1986.
Anyway, on a very long text, it could make some sense for the back button to move from #page3 to #page2.
Accidentally, it would return the user to the “page” he was reading if he clicked a link to other website and is returning.
I love reading your posts so much.
I love that the article you quoted literally proves my point, but somehow you think it refutes it.
The only downside is that I can’t go around passive-aggressively Liking everyone laboriously trying to explain basic UX to our lord and savior wumpus and instead must resort to gasp posting passive aggressively instead :)
Go to a long Wikipedia article. Click a link in the table of contents. Click back. Where are you? And yet, what is a wiki article but a long page? Much like, say, a forum thread.
I actually find the back button thing a lot more obnoxious on mobile, where many interaction-elements (search, hamburger menu, page scroller thingie, expanded images, etc.) take up all or most of the page, making it look like I’ve gone somewhere new, but instead require tapping at some small prescribed area to banish them, as Backing out on my superior Android OS device with a back button results in leaving the thread I’m currently unable to see due to the obscuring UI.
My back button is taking me out of this nerd flame war, right after I hit the mute button.
Dammit wumpus, now I can’t unsee what I have seen. I never noticed before but now I do… and it’s horrible.
Your basically making use of the back button to replicate threading (or pagination? I’m not a web programmer) in a non-threaded application, the same way you took over control-f to grab search out of the browser’s control.
Yes. While the underpinning as obviously different, this is the same use case as an html anchor. For instance on wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
if I click on a link to a citation which moves me in the page like:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia#cite_note-WP_notability_guide_1-93
or I jump to a section
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia#Content_policies_and_guidelines
The back button takes me back from the anchor point. The links in a topic work just like an anchor point from a UX perspective, so it makes sense for a user to expect the same experience even if the site isn’t actually using anchor points.
It’s actually not. When i click a link that links to another Discourse thread in Discourse, going back takes me to the root subfolder, not the previous thread.
Dunno what to tell you. In your examples, when i click the first link and then click back on the browser, i go the main Everything Else directory. When i click your second link and click back on the broswer i go… to the main Everything Else directory.
When i do this in Wikipedia (to use the example) i go back to the same place i had previously left.
Both of those links are to this same discussion thread. But I actually think your confusion there is a further argument for why it shouldn’t work this way :)
No, you clearly skipped the citation example. The citations occur on the middle of articles and back takes you to the exact spot you were at before. Not the top.
Yes to both questions. After I click a link to go somewhere else the back buttom should return me to where I was.
Guys, you’re just murdering words for no good reason. You need to accept that whatever wumpus’ personal workflow might be, that is obviously the objectively correct one for everyone, rather than merely a personal preference. Just ask the folks over at TheDailyWTF about their experience ;)
The only thing more infuriating than Discourse’s intra-thread Back-navigation (well, lack thereof) behavior is the endless variety of JSONed-out-the-ass webapps that dynamically load content as you scroll down and make no effort to maintain position when you Browser-back into them after clicking through to elsewhere. Oh my holy fuck that’s infuriating when I accidentally left-click open a link rather than middle- or control-clicking it into a new tab. . .