We just made an update to the Find a Doctor application on eCommunity.com, basically an update to correct some application flow issues.  One of the major issues was our attempt to stop users from using the back button because it was causing issues with the session and search results of the application.  It was causing several unintended effects like not being able to come back to a profile page or leave a profile page each occurred in a different set of circumstances.

Shouldn't have done this in the first place.

Attempting to stop back button use is a major usability must-not-do.  There are many articles and books and web pages discussing this usability problem.  Probably the most famous is Jakob Nielsen's "The Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 1999" which still applies today.

I recently read his book "Prioritizing Web Usability" (written with Hoa Loranger) which was published in 2006 and many of the usability problems that he wrote about in 1999 are still relevant today and relevant for the future.  It shows how timeless design issues can be and that developers who don’t understand the past are doomed to repeat design mistakes of earlier developers.