It reminded me of an old chestnut that needs re-hashing: don’t break the back button.

You may wonder why, if you include something similar within a Flash movie, you should not break the browser’s back button.

It’s a question of trust. Users vary significantly in their confidence when it comes to using a web browser. Part of the “deal” they have going is the consistent “language” they use to communicate with it. If you do something ninety-nine times and each time get a consistent result, then changing that on the hundredth attempt is like jumping out from behind a bush shouting “boo!” The expectation the user has — rightly — is that hitting the back button will take them to the state the screen was previously in. They don’t care whether that’s embedded in an object and not a separate URL. I’m with them on this: it’s incredibly annoying to progress through several screens of a flash site, hit the browser “back” button and then be booted out back to a completely different site.

So don’t do it. If you must have a completely Flash-based site, then do it sensibly. There are several utilities out there for this. You could use SWFObject combined with SWF Address, but there are others.

Technorati: Usability