Redesigning The "Back" Button

TheMatt writes "Nature Science Update is reporting today about research by New Zealand scientists on redesigning how the "Back" button works in your browser. They point to the fact that the current "Back" is more of an "Up" in a stack of pages. They propose a system that records all pages visited. A good summary page of their efforts in web navigation (including a interesting thumbnail-style "Back" menu) can be found on their page."

They should...

[craenor]

come to the U.S. and apply for a gov't grant to study this...probably get $5 million a year at least.

Important research!

If I'm not mistaken.....

[deathcow]

Doesnt Amazon have a patent on this??

(groan)

Bah!

[oGMo]

Bah, I thought of this years ago. Back buttons suck. So does the whole linear web browser model. I mean, it's the web, right? Why is it always back and forward? Why don't we see a web (graph) view?

I always wanted a web browser called "Sting" that displayed stuff like this and let you "cut through" the web. ;-)

Making this really useful

[Gorm the DBA]

Okay...so after reading the article, I see that they're trying to make it so that users can get back to the main page easily so they can get to the information they want.

Why not make it *really* easy and develop a "forward" button that would actually take you to the piece of the Mega-pagecount-poorly-indexed-searchbuttonless web portal of doom that you're really interested in? They could call it the Psychic Fast Forward or some such.

Base it off of all of the Total Information Awareness data that the government wants to gather about us, so it predicts what you want.

And then place locks on your browser so that you really only want to go to the major sites.

Then eugenically engineer society so that you don't even know that you ever wanted to go somewhere else.

NOW we're making the web useful!!!!!!!!!!!

Some sites already redesign the Back button

[serutan]

By using script to change it to a "Stay-Here" button. Those are the sites you make a point of never bookmarking, or ever intentionally visiting again.

Button?

[Gimpin]

First of all, who still uses a mouse...press the backspace key

No, redesign the FORWARD button...

[Lxy]

The back button is fine the way it is.

If the Back button takes me to where I've been, why doesn't the Forward button take me where I haven't been yet? I want a button that takes me to where I'm going to go before I ask it. Is that too much to ask?

How about....

[Flabby Boohoo]

Instead of a back button, create a belly button.

Re: WHY?

[Black Parrot]

> The average web browser's "back" feature is almost the only software feature in existence that is universally understood, and works as advertised. If it aint broke...

The problem is that "back" is the wrong way when you're on the other side of the equator.

What I want is a working forward button

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

It's usually greyed out. It'd be useful if it always worked as it could make surfing really efficient.

BURN, HERETIC!

[LPetrazickis]

How dare you take the pre-Umbilist position [landoverbaptist.org] about BELLY BUTTONS? Every KNOWS that GOD did not create BELLY BUTTONS! These unspeakable signs of SIN -- they cannot appear without ABOMINABLE fornication -- formed when MAN fell from the GRACE of GOD by eating a BREAST-SHAPED FRUIT. You will BURN in HELL forever!