Meryl's Notes Blog

I fill out too many surveys, but I like to help. Usually they ask opinions on a Web site, product, application, service and so on. I noticed an ugly pattern in that many don’t have a “Back” link. Sometimes surveys don’t like it when you use the Back button on the browser because of data processing.

Humans naturally pick an item from a list, but sometimes realize a different choice was the better one as the proceeded to the next question. So what to do? No back link or button. Some surveys mess up if you hit the Back button on the Web browser. If companies or whomever is collecting the data wants it right… then it needs to have a back link.

As I was writing this entry, I came across Never Use a Warning When You Mean Undo, which talks about a similar issue.

I’ve been reviewing a lot of games and think about their usability in the back of my mind. One problem I see is that I accidentally click the screen while reading contain in a popup window or miss a message. I can’t get it back. Sometimes those messages or popups have important information, tips or help that I need. Either you have to start at the beginning or live without the information.

Maybe we need to make a new standard in all applications to “undo” the last action or “reopen” the last window.