The double 'back' buttons needs to go

antonjw

Toby Perhaps it was intended just as a UI cue for the slide-out discussion list?

I think this is really what it does, isn't it?

Issues with the Back Button (from UI Consistency thread)
So the thing is... the 'Back Button' isn't actually a back button...

Its literal meaning is: 'from a Discussion, take me back to the Discussion List which I was previously viewing'
(and forums do usually carry this particular function; it's usually labelled "back to xyz forum").

Explanation
If you were viewing say, the Dev Tag, and then open a Discussion in it, then hit the 'Flarum Back button', you get the Dev Discussion List again. But then the Back button disappears; I can't use it to navigate back to my previously-viewed Tag or All discussions, or the discussion I was looking at before that. It's not always present nor keeping a 'history', like the browser button is.

I conclude that the button does have a useful and actually typical navigational function, but that the usage of the 'Arrow' icon is causing unnecessary confusion with the browser back button.

Suggestion: Replace the 'Back Button' with the 'Tag' Icon (coloured to represent the Tag you were last viewing) - or the 'All Discussions' Icon (if that's where you were).

Alongside an always-visible 'Pin' icon, I feel that this would communicate better (e.gs):
Go back to Dev, or Pin it in a side panel.
Go back to All Discussions, or Pin it in a side panel.

Dominion

... After playing around with it a bit, I'm intrigued by the suggestion from antonjw to color this button (and perhaps the "Pin" icon as well) to match the tag in question. It wouldn't clash with the discussion title banner (of course), and once that banner has scrolled off the top of the page, it would remain as a visual cue to remind you which topic list will be revealed when you hover/click on it.

It might be worth trying out.

Toby

How about an icon which visually represents the discussion list – like list-ul? It's currently live on this forum. Thoughts?

Dominion

So to sum up:

Hovering over the list-ul button displays the topic list you viewed last in a slide-in panel.
Clicking that button takes you back to that topic list.
Clicking the site logo takes you back to whatever's set as the home page (i.e. index or tags page).

Have I got that last one right? That seems perfect.

I don't see a need for an always-visible "Pin" icon, because it wouldn't be clear what you're pinning.

santiagobiali

Dominion Clicking that button takes you back to that topic list.

It stil do the same as the old back button, if you go:topic list->post->user profile and press the button you will be back at topic list->post

Dominion

santiagobiali Good point, I could have investigated that a little further.

To add a bit more detail, once you're at the user profile page:

Hovering over the button no longer does anything at all.
Clicking the button pops you back to the thread you came from and reveals the previous topic list slide-in.

I guess the fact that hovering doesn't work makes sense, since moving to the profile page has taken you out of the scope of the primary tag that was your departure point.

But at this point the list-ul icon seems a bit misleading, as clicking it takes you back to a discussion instead of a topic list. (The icon should indicate what will happen to the main page if you click on it. Here, the slide-in panel seems to be making an appearance to apologize for the fact that the icon didn't give you the topic list it promised.)

Would it be possible to have the icon change to something else in such cases? (I know, I know, the obvious choice would be to have it change to the < button, and we're trying to get away from that.)

Dominion

Sorry about all the double-posting ... after a bit more experimentation and thought:

... Icon choice aside, I find myself wishing the behavior of the button would stay constant. That is, the panel should not slide in on hover in some cases and appear after a click in others.

Perhaps an alternative would be to have the button function remain the same: it always shows the last-visited topic list, so even if the user browses far afield of that tag, e.g.

User clicks on the Thingamajig tag.
User reads a topic in the Thingamajig tag.
User visits the profile of a another user who posted in that topic.
User follows a link in the profile to a different topic, which is in the Doohickey tag.
User visits the profile of another user who posted there, etc.

... the list-ul button will always be available as a shortcut back to the Thingamajig tag, where the journey began. This would give it a different function and usefulness from the browser "Back" button, which is there if the user wants to retrace his steps in reverse order. And it would give a greater sense of being "in" the tag, something that users accustomed to traditional forums might appreciate.

If you go this route, then button behavior (hover for panel, click to change the page) can remain constant ... and the list-ul icon would be appropriate everywhere, too. ?

Kulga

Since we're discussing navigation.. maybe some king of bread crumb indicator of where you've been?
Clicking would bring you to that tag, etc.

Dominion

The idea of using the button as a shortcut back to the starting point also prompted me to think about breadcrumbs.

The difficulty there is that traditional breadcrumbs show you where you are in the hierarchy, and the route to that location from the Home page. An indicator of "where you've been" is a bit different, because your route to that place may well have passed several discussions and user profiles, things that are hard to represent as breadcrumbs (except as an endpoint) ... and even if we limit it to tags, you could quickly pile up enough tags to push everything else out of the header!

I'm not sure the user really needs a visual reminder of where he's been ... but a function allowing the user to skip back a few steps ... not all the way back to where you started, without having to go back one step at a time ... could indeed be useful at times. So ... would it be possible for the list-ui button to expand into a breadcrumb trail of the sort Kulga has suggested?

I'm wondering how that would work. We've already got the panel opening on hover, so that's probably out. Maybe it could happen on the click. If the user clicks the button at step 2 in the chain then the page goes back to the topic list (as is the case now). Anywhere after step 2, it becomes a two-step process: the button expands into a list of locations between step 1 and the present location, and the user can click on one of them.

Does that sound doable? Desirable? I'm not quite sure how it would work, GUI-wise.

Foxxy

Toby Which is making me wonder why we have a custom one in the first place.

I'm in favour of removing it. I don't really see its point. Personally, I'm surprised you added it in the first place. You're kind of a UI / UX genius in my opinion. ?

« Previous Page