Some months ago, I wrote a post titled The First Rule of User Interface. The rule is simple: A proper user interface sets the user up to succeed. By this I mean that if the site requires certain information, or information in a specific format, that should be clearly indicated in the user interface. A site, or any application, should make it clear up front what is expected, as opposed to indicating what the user should have done only upon a failure to do so. Tightly coupled with this is my “Second Rule of User Interface”: Don’t fight the user’s habits. If the first rule could be paraphrased as “Tell the user what you expect”, then second rule could be said “Don’t deny what the user expects.”

This rule comes into play in many ways, from where navigation elements should be located, to how buttons and links behave. It also means that you shouldn’t “break the browser” by attempting to disable JavaScript features (such as Control+Clicking or Right+Clicking on an element), preventing use of the back button, and so forth. This last issue—wanting the user not to use the back button—is a big mistake. (And keep in mind that most attempts to circumvent common browser behavior can be easily circumvented by disabling JavaScript.)

Fortunately, you can have your proverbial cake and eat it, too. This is to say, there are ways to accomplish your goals without undermining standard user or browser behavior. For example, if it might be a problem if the user clicks the back button, write the site’s code to address that possibility (sessions can be used towards that end). As another example, if you don’t want the user to copy images, well, that’s a tougher one. You can use JavaScript to prevent that, but JavaScript can be disabled. You can embed the image in Flash so that it’s not directly copy-able, but the user could still take a screen shot. The fix is simple: add a watermark to the images, when necessary. With any possible example, the main idea is this: when something a user, or the browser, might commonly do could be a problem for your site, program the site to handle that possibility. Whatever you do, don’t try to prevent the user from doing something their accustomed to doing on every other site they visit. If you take that approach, all you’ll succeed in is driving away your visitors.