Wot really pisses me off!

I really hate it when a site that requires a log-in for some specific feature gets you to log in and then forgets about where you previously were or why you wanted to log in and takes you to the home page!! GRRR!!!

The two high-profile sites that do that are Digg.com....which if you click on a Digg This! button and are not signed in will get you to sign in and then take you to the front page. Ultimately this leaves me (the user) with no idea as to what the system has just done and gives me no incentive in future to log-in since I have extra work to just digg an item!!

The other site is IMDB.com which requires a log-in to view forums. Once you log in it seems to take you to the front page requiring you to basically find you way all the way back to that specific page. Often this means that users will just give up and go elsewhere if it isn't important enough. For a website that is selling stuff or wants to retain viewers this is a complete no no. The user must be able to see exactly where in the system (contextually) they are and what the system is doing or has done. Feedback is very important not only in the real world (body language) but also from an application's perspective. The user will react to the feedback given to the extent that in some studies (Google for "The Media Equation") it was shown that certain users (children and submissive people) were actually more likely to follow the advice of the computer than those who have a more dominant personality.

The only way to get around this is to use the back button on your browser to take you back where you were. This back button has lost quite a bit of functionality in recent months with the web apps that have been coming out and so I hope that system designers will keep in mind the user feedback guidelines that are necessary to make sure the user feels in control and is aware of all changes made by the system.