Making A Web Page Expire

[tomyknoker]

I have a sign-up page which once a user signs up goes to a page they have to read... I have found that some people are hitting the back button on their browser and submitting the form again this is obviously causing errors in my database... So once they get to the page they have to read, what options could I have if they hit back? I don;t want them to go back to the last page of sign-up... Is the simplest and most effective way to make that page expire? If anyone has any opinions would be much appreciated!

[boogyman]

I think the first question, to ask is what is provoking the user from hitting the back button?

is it because of some errors? if so.. the form shouldn't be processed in the first place. however if this person is just going back and submitting duplicate accounts, you should be doing some processing so no 2 users can have the same info, and print out error message if someone is attempting to do that. and as for making the page expire, you can re-validate it and not keep a cached version, but not wanting a page to display at all, really is something that I would advise against.

[tomyknoker]

Nothing really, some users hit back not sure why... I guess every situation is possible?

When they hit back the form is broken up (using javascript), the first name, last name and email is gone... So when they submit again the fields get entered into the database blank... Would the best way then be to, if they hit the back button that the form get's brought back to the beginning? That just seems really complex...

[boogyman]

Nothing really, some users hit back not sure why... I guess every situation is possible?

When they hit back the form is broken up (using javascript), the first name, last name and email is gone... So when they submit again the fields get entered into the database blank... Would the best way then be to, if they hit the back button that the form get's brought back to the beginning? That just seems really complex...

before putting anything into the database you should make sure that some of the fields are required. and if those fields aren't present / that record is already in the database, you should return an error and and go somewhere else...

now it sounds like after they submit an application or something, they are redirected to a page that they do not want to go to... I would say that if everything is a success, then have the page redirect to the homepage, or whatever page you think is necessary and print out some type of message saying that the form worked...

they hit the back button for a couple of reasons
1. they do not know anythign has happened
2. they get to a page that gives a sense of being broken
3. they want to cause havoc (which i dont think is in your case)
4. they are confused about what to do next

and im sureyou can think of a couple others too. if this keeps happening, try to maybe contact your users to see what their problem is / why they are hitting the back button. usability testing is always key!

[Strangeplant]

This is not an uncommon issue. Use PHP to generate your page, and session variable, then detect if the session variable is set at the top of the page on entering and you can redirect to another page to help pull up and display existing information for editing for completeness if he has already been there. Alternatively, use a cookie.