can anyone link me to documentation that shows you...

# android

[eschrag]

can anyone link me to documentation that shows you shouldn’t disable the back button? i know this is incredibly unusual to do but can’t find official support that shows you shouldn’t do this for a designer.

[Zun]

As a developer you can do what you want, as long as the user expects to see something happen when they do something. The moment you do something unexpected it’s bad for the user

Funny enough, the source code for onBackPressed says “you can do whatever you want”

[eschrag]

Yeah, I was hoping to find something outlining that disabling back is pretty unusual.

[reline]

does this help?
https://developer.android.com/guide/navigation/navigation-principles

[eschrag]

was thinking of sending that but it doesn’t strongly back up allowing back as much as possible

[eschrag]

but i may go with it, thanks

[reline]

I felt this was a pretty strong point

ensuring that users can apply the same heuristics and patterns in navigation as they move between apps

[Ian Lake]

Not much has changed since this 2012 gem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=631T7B8HOv4▾

[Ian Lake]

The docs do specifically call out that you should not add a Back button to your app's UI and that Back should do something: https://developer.android.com/guide/navigation/navigation-custom-back

[CLOVIS]

That was a great video, thanks for the link.

[CLOVIS]

Material does recommend adding a back button though. Top-left in Gmail, Google Fit, Slack... https://material.io/design/navigation/understanding-navigation.html#reverse-navigation

[Ian Lake]

No, that's an Up button: https://medium.com/@ianhlake/up-vs-back-5fae17a84a5f

[Ian Lake]

You'll note how the material guidelines specifically call out the system back button for reverse chronological (back) navigation, separate from Upward navigation

[CLOVIS]

Thanks, sorry for the confusion.