Too late! The feature was removed (I think quite some time ago). Ok, admittedly it’s still there in the menu, but no longer given any space in the UI.
I understood what it was but I also never used it. It sounds useful, but somehow isn’t for some reason, at least that’s the case for me. I wonder whether there were ever any number of people who really used the feature.
That also goes to show that just having a useful feature isn’t enough.
I think the problem with the feature is that it isn’t useful often enough. The common case when looking at search results is to open a page, see that it isn’t the right one and go back. So just hitting the back button once is quite often all that’s needed.
Sometimes you will click through several pages before you notice that what you found isn’t quite right, but I would guess that in a majority of cases you will notice that immediately. Which means that just hitting the back button just works in a majority of cases and the Snapback function doesn’t provide any additional savings.
Moreover, the back button is probably the single most used UI element in a web browser, so everyone is really used to using it. Switching to something else that does something similar in some situations but you are not used to is a painful transition.
Also, the back button degrades gracefully: Just slamming on it until you are back where you want to also works. It might take a little more time, but it works.
So in summary, the Snapback function is only rarely actually useful compared to the back button, and if it is the back button requires only a little more effort but also works. That’s why I think it doesn’t really work.
Chrome implemented this by showing the last history item with a different host at the bottom of the list that shows if you hold down on the back button.
I understood what it was but I also never used it. It sounds useful, but somehow isn’t for some reason, at least that’s the case for me. I wonder whether there were ever any number of people who really used the feature.
That also goes to show that just having a useful feature isn’t enough.
I think the problem with the feature is that it isn’t useful often enough. The common case when looking at search results is to open a page, see that it isn’t the right one and go back. So just hitting the back button once is quite often all that’s needed.
Sometimes you will click through several pages before you notice that what you found isn’t quite right, but I would guess that in a majority of cases you will notice that immediately. Which means that just hitting the back button just works in a majority of cases and the Snapback function doesn’t provide any additional savings.
Moreover, the back button is probably the single most used UI element in a web browser, so everyone is really used to using it. Switching to something else that does something similar in some situations but you are not used to is a painful transition.
Also, the back button degrades gracefully: Just slamming on it until you are back where you want to also works. It might take a little more time, but it works.
So in summary, the Snapback function is only rarely actually useful compared to the back button, and if it is the back button requires only a little more effort but also works. That’s why I think it doesn’t really work.