Hi Peter My gut reaction is that you should not be saving form state when a user presses a button labelled "back". I was having trouble thinking of why I felt this way when you first posted your question, but I think its a bit clearer now.
When a user comes to a form they assume a few things. For example: - When they move a cursor into the a field and type their text will appear in the field as they type it - When they press the tab key they will move the next field - When they press the reset button all the changes they have made on the form will be cleared - When they press submit their entries will be sent to the server - If they move off the page in any other way their entries will NOT be sent This is pretty basic behaviour that we have all come to expect on the web. By having a back button that takes them to the previous page AND saves their data you are breaking away from the expected behaviour. It may seem that you are enhancing the user experience but my gut feel is that this enhancement is not worth the fact that you are doing something that the user does not expect. Once users see this behaviour I think they may assume that the form is somehow magically saving their information as they enter it. This could lead them to expect their information to be saved regardless of how they leave the form. How does your average user see the difference between the browser's back button and your back button? I guess I'm worried about you lulling them into a false sense of security and that this will lead to a negative experience in the long run. Could you possibly have a button that explicitly says "Save and return to previous screen", but that is a bit of a mouthful. Mr Barnes will sledge me for this, but I think about 90% of interface design is making it work in the way the user expects. The other 10% is being creative within these limits. If you are Apple you can break these rules, but if you are developing an application that serves a business purpose you shouldn't. Let me know what you think. -- Mark Stanton Gruden Pty Ltd http://www.gruden.com --- You are currently subscribed to cfaussie as: [email protected] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aussie Macromedia Developers: http://lists.daemon.com.au/
