On 7/25/05, Frank W. Zammetti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Having same address is important to prevent browser history from > > growing, thus effectively disabling Back button. This makes > > application more robust and user experience closer to desktop > > application. > > In my experience, there are two distinct expectations a client can have... > one is that the application be very much like a desktop app, the other is > that it be very much like a web app. People DO, amazingly, understand the > fundamental difference. > > In the former case, I have always solved the problem by having the app > exist in its own chromeless window. I provide full navigation > capabilities within the app, and the users understand that if they try and > defeat this by using keyboard shortcuts or extra mouse buttons or the > like, the app is not guaranteed to not break. > > THIS is in fact closer to a desktop app, and if that's the goal I suggest > this rather than some sort of hybrid approach. > > In the the later case, users will absolutely expect the history to work as > it always does, and an app that defeats that is seen as broken.
Ok, I will use the same use case I used during last weeks :) a login form. Say, you have a welcome page on a website, which directs a user to a login page. How many pages do you have? I hope your answer is two. So we have two pages and we can return from a login page to welcome page using Back, and then to go again to login page using Forward. I think it is logical, that we need to click Back *only once* to return from login page to welcome page. Now a user tries to login. He makes several attempts, say five. It did not work, and a login page is redisplayed with error (is not this the same login page, logically?) The user wants to return to welcome page. How many times is he supposed to click Back button? In most applications, six times. Why? because browser recorded each login attempt as a separate resource location. Therefore, a user actually *expects* to click Back only once to return back, because login page is a second page. Instead, he is *forced* to click six times. Do you really think that clicking Back six times is logical and expected by a user? I do not thik so. Having one address for login page, and redirecting to it after submitting the data, we ensure (for most browsers) that browser history contains only one entry of our logical page. Which is exactly what a user expects. > I have thought of it, like I said. As for what I believe, it doesn't > matter... it's what the CLIENT believes. I can guide them and direct > them, but ultimately they write the requirements. I've been fortunate to > be involved in analysis and design from inception in most of my projects, > so I can make sure they are getting things right. That's not always the > case. Right, clients don't know the details of tecnhology. We as developers should offer them the best we can do (in reasonable time, of course). On the other hand, do your clients really care about what happens when a user clicks Refresh button? I would say, they ask for certain pages to be bookmarkable. And oh, make it in blue, not in yellow ;) Michael. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
