Applied Usability Research

Those who have already installed Firefox 3.0 could have been as surprised as me with the new design of the Back and forward buttons. The new back button is round and about twice the size of the forward button. Although quite stylish, this design breaks with the conventional layout which web users have grown accustomed to.

This change is in fact a brilliant response to a recurrent usability research result: "When users are navigating, the back button is of the most used browser feature"**.
What was Netscape's solution? Make it bigger than the forward button! Simple! Functional! and visually appealing!


** For more information see:

Catledge L, Pitkow, J. - Characterizing browsing strategies in the World-Wide Web. (http://www.pitkow.com/docs/1995-WWW3-Characterizing.pdf

Stanton, N. A. & Baber, C. - The Myth of Navigating in Hypertext: How a "Bandwagon" Has Lost Its Course!