While hanging out with some friends the other night, I experienced something that surprised and impressed me to an interesting degree. As that night progressed, our conversation slowly shifted its way toward the familiar topic of things we had seen on the Internet, which it frequently does. It was during this progression that a laptop appeared and immediately garnered all of our attention.

While my friend continued to describe to us what she was about to pull up on her laptop, I noticed something strange about her browser. The back button on her Firefox was completely off. At first this didn’t strike me as anything odd because she had just opened a fresh browser window, but as she started jumping from link to link I noticed that the back button remained inactive.

This was the point when my curiosity kicked in and I interrupted her casually to ask why the back button wasn’t working. Without a pause, she said that it hadn’t worked for a while. Immediately, my first reaction was to offer to try and fix this amazing problem, but before I could, I tried asking how she’s used the Internet this whole time without a back button.

Seemingly, before I could even finish the question she was already giving her reply:

The beautiful thing about her statement was the honesty of it and its complete seriousness. Somehow, not being able to just ‘go back’ seemed like a big deal to me, but that’s probably only because I’ve been somewhat of a hardcore user of the Internet for some time now. Though, as this new mind-set began to sink, I realized it wasn’t as completely flawed as I had assumed.

Upon the revelation of this new outlook on navigating the web, my friend began to explain her technique of not using the back button. The step by step process that unfolded was an amazing journey through a very unconventional user walk-through. The interesting thing though, was how she coped with the absence of crucial function instead of just trying to correct the problem.

Fascinatingly, all of this reminded me how relevant it is when it comes to any web experience. Not just navigating a website, but the Internet as a whole and even the tools that you use to do so. And as the interactivity online branches out from the computer into phones, TVs (again), toasters, and deck chairs, it’s the responsibility of the movers and shakers online to create an experience that transcends some of the most basic mentalities we’ve held on to since those early days online.

Oh, and I also coined the term ‘Linear Netting’ to describe the mentality that is never go back online. Try it out some time.