There’s a bane infesting the internet. OK, there’re many. But the bane I’m considering here is one that I find highly irritating. It’s number 9 on Jakob Nielsen’s all-time Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design. Born of the need to control, a vain attempt to keep readers on a site when they actually want to leave, I’m referring to the habit of opening a link in a new window (usually without notice).
I know how to use my browser, thank you. If I want to open the link in a new tab (never window), I’ll do so myself. A website forcing me to open in a new window results in me having to go back and focus on the offending window, and close it manually. It doesn’t leave me with a good feeling about the site.
An excuse is that most users still use IE6, and can’t open new tabs. That’s not really an excuse, as they can still decide to open in a new window or not. The real thinking is that users are clueless, and don’t know how to open in a new window, so to avoid the possibility of them losing the wonderful site the designer so wants them to see, the link opens in a new window. The irony is that really clueless users may not even see the old window, and even if they do want to go back, the Back button no longer works.
The light on the horizon comes in the form of IE7. Soon, a whole new generation of users will happily be opening links in new tabs, wondering how they ever did without it. I don’t think that’s a naive hope, as once the dominant tool has a new, useful, easy-to-use feature (new tabs are much more useful than new windows), it will become widespread quite quickly. And once that happens, there’ll be a new generation of users complaining when links open up in a new window.
And that’ll make my browsing a little more pleasurable!
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