The Back Button - How People Use Web Sites

The Back Button is one of the most important Web buttons on some Web page, and yet most Web designers don't think of it to use when they're building their pages. In fact, it's very common to see "back to home" or "back to start" links built into the pages while they design. But unless these links have built in logic that knows precisely where the customer was before they clicked.

How Most People Browse the Web

Most people come to a Web page and surf. If it doesn't look like what they needed to study or wanted to read about, they leave. And the quickest way out of any Web site is, you guessed it, it’s definitely the Back Button.

They sit at a Web site with their mouse hovering over the scroll-bar area, just in case they need to scroll the page. Then, unless impressive really interesting comes along, they pull their mouse up to the upper left side of the browser and go back to their previous place.

Take Advantage of the Back Button


1.Place your branding up near the back button
2.Make items in that area clickable
3.Use server logs to find out where they came from