These days, most software designers understand that confirmation messages are a good thing. For example, if the user just made some changes, you should show a message that says “Changes saved” or something along those lines.

But aside from showing the confirmation, where should you take the user next? Should you bring them back to the editing view to make more changes, or to the page where they originally clicked “Edit”, or perhaps to a page that shows all their recent changes?

Depending on the context, each of these options has merit. The key is to think about the logical next action that the user will take. Then, put them on the right page and provide them with the appropriate links to help speed up their workflow.

By the way, here’s a great example of what NOT to do. For extra special badness, show the user a confirmation message, and then bring them to a screen that has nothing to do with what they just saved, no relationship to the path they took to get there, and no links to get back. That’s a guaranteed way to leave people frustrated and confused.