Back button/navigation between steps functions correctly
Why it matters
Shoppers fix mistakes by going back. If the back button is missing from the payment step, a shopper who notices a wrong shipping address has to abandon and start over. Worse, if back navigation clears form data, every mistake forces re-entry of twenty-plus fields. Both behaviors drive abandonment on an otherwise-committed buyer. The underlying bug is almost always state being scoped to the step component instead of the checkout container.
Severity rationale
Medium because the defect blocks error recovery on committed buyers, not on every shopper, but data loss is severe when it hits.
Remediation
Hoist checkout state into a parent container at src/components/CheckoutFlow.tsx or a React Context so step transitions read and write the same object. Render a Back button on every step except the first, and verify backward navigation does not clear formData.
const [formData, setFormData] = useState({ shipping: {}, payment: {} })
const goBack = () => setStep(getPreviousStep(step))
<button onClick={goBack} disabled={step === 'shipping'}>Back</button>
DetectionPro
The detection method for this pattern is part of AuditBuffet Pro.
The full method (what to look for, pass and fail conditions, and how results get reported) ships inside the Cart & Checkout UX Audit. The pattern definition, severity rationale, and remediation remain openly licensed under CC-BY-4.0.
Taxons
History
- 2026-04-18·v1.0.0·Initial import from ecommerce-cart-ux·automated