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Forcing links to open in new windows: an argument that should have ended

marco.org

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Re: Forcing links to open in new windows: an argument that should have ended

#41

Post by gpvos »

natural219 wrote: post #23

I'm confused. He says: Forcing links to open in new windows has two main purposes: 1) To avoid disturbing an important session in progress for a temporary digression, such as FAQ/documentation links in the sidebar when you’re doing online banking. And then: I believe the former is justifiable He gives a good reason for using target="_blank", and then...okay, what? Sounds like a good reason. Even then, his second reas…

He gives two reasons, one good, one bad. He has no problems with sites that use target="_blank" for the first reason. But he wrote the article because he thinks way too many sites are using it for the second reason, which he thinks is terrible UI and should never be used, because it confuses users, which is a dark pattern, even if it would increase your ROI, which is questionable.

Re: Forcing links to open in new windows: an argument that should have ended

#43

Post by jaredsohn »

gpvos wrote: post #33
danielpal wrote: post #10

I completely disagree. In fact I find it worse when a link opens in the same tab and then I have to navigate back and find the place that I was at .vs. having to close a new tab I did not want. "And I think over a decade of user confusion and frustration resulting from target="_blank" backs that up." Do you have any links to to back this claim?

The main point, as far as I'm concerned, is that if a site has standard links and I want to open a page in a new tab, I can do that. But if a site opens pages in a new tab, I cannot suppress that. (Yeah, there's probably an extension for that, but that's not the point.) You are taking away choice. It would be nice if browsers would indicate whether a link opened a new tab or not. That would also make me less hesitant…

Beyond extensions, Firefox has a setting that can force links to always open in the same tab:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.link.open_newwindow

Re: Forcing links to open in new windows: an argument that should have ended

#44

Post by danso »

This reminds me of an Etsy engineering talk about A/B testing:

http://mcfunley.com/design-for-continuous-experimentation

Etsy employees were so sure that customers would love having blank/multi-windows, because if you shop on Etsy a lot, how else would you keep track of interesting things while moving down the list?

According to slide 20, 70 percent more people in the testing group gave up and left the site after getting a new tab.

Re: Forcing links to open in new windows: an argument that should have ended

#45

Post by bradbatt »

SDGT wrote: post #28
tannerc wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you commonly refer to your users/visitors as "dumb" then your problem isn't with links. Alas, it's worth considering personal bias. Simply because you understand the fundamentals of the web and how to use modern technology doesn't mean it's the norm or standard (yet). Because someone doesn't know how to "middle click" does not make them stupid.

My qualms are with the lack of motivation to learn. I get the daily urge to look up some shortcut or random tidbit of information I didn't know about any subject, so I get rather upset when coworkers continue on their day doing the bare minimum. It takes a total of maybe 15 seconds to learn how to open a link in a tab. If that's too much effort for someone, then I seriously question what other small things that perso…

It takes a total of maybe 15 seconds to learn how to open a link in a tab. If that's too much effort for someone, then I seriously question what other small things that person has decided to just not learn throughout their life.

For most of them it's not a matter of them not wanting to learn or being too lazy to learn. It's that they don't know that there is something they need to learn.

They don't know that it's an option. They don't know that it's possible. They don't even know that it is something they should consider.

It's simple to everyone on HN, but even simple things are not obvious to everyone that uses a computer or mobile device. One of our users just a few weeks ago did not know how to copy and paste text. Not didn't know the keyboard shortcuts…Did not know how to do it at all!

Instead, the user printed out the text I had requested him to copy/paste, scanned it in, and attached the image to a reply email.

You do what you know how to do.

Re: Forcing links to open in new windows: an argument that should have ended

#47

Post by Morgawr »

dasil003 wrote: post #21
danielpal wrote: post #10

I completely disagree. In fact I find it worse when a link opens in the same tab and then I have to navigate back and find the place that I was at .vs. having to close a new tab I did not want. "And I think over a decade of user confusion and frustration resulting from target="_blank" backs that up." Do you have any links to to back this claim?

I have more important things to do than to attempt to put together statistical proof of this to empiricism-fetishists, but I can see in 15 years of web development that I've seen this (including in a proper usability lab with one way glass and eye-tracking, bla bla bla) create serious confusion with users vainly attempting to click back and not understanding why it doesn't work. That is for the average non-tech user.…

I very much doubt that the majority of the American population under 40 are "sophisticated users". And no, browsing Facebook and twitter every day does not count. Especially this day and age full of tablets, smartphones and specific apps, people are unlearning how actual Web browsing works.

This said, personally I consider clicking on a link to an external resource/website to have a default behaviour of opening in a new tab. Failure of doing so counts as a usability bug to me. For same-site links then I agree, opening a new tab doesn't make sense.

There's nothing more frustrating than browsing with mouse only and being forced to go back and open a link with ctrl+click or middle click(also my mouse3 button is broken, but that's my problem)

Re: Forcing links to open in new windows: an argument that should have ended

#48

Post by mintplant »

pyre wrote: post #32
SDGT wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal evidence to combat anecdotal evidence, but where do we stop and let the user make some damn decisions? Are users really too stupid to know ctrl+click, middle click, or right click->open in new tab? Personally I side with the author, as I open just about everything with middle click, but I also have a lot of dumb users that rely on target _blank like it's the only thing preventing them from spiraling into a…

> Are users really too stupid to know ctrl+click, middle click, or right click->open in new tab? There are people that use their computer day-in and day-out that don't know about alt-tab to switch between windows... The computer doesn't come with a manual, and no one ever showed them. Not everyone that gets plopped in front of a computer explores their new environment once they have a workflow down.

Those same people may not understand how tabs work, either. They might not realize where their previous browsing session went, or how to get back (since the back button no longer functions as expected in the new tab).

Re: Forcing links to open in new windows: an argument that should have ended

#49

Post by jordanroher »

danielpal wrote: post #10

I completely disagree. In fact I find it worse when a link opens in the same tab and then I have to navigate back and find the place that I was at .vs. having to close a new tab I did not want. "And I think over a decade of user confusion and frustration resulting from target="_blank" backs that up." Do you have any links to to back this claim?

Sure do! This has been an issue in web design since 1999. Usability studies back this up.

Open New Windows for PDF and other Non-Web Documents (Jakob Nielsen, 2005) [0]

The Top 10 Web Design Mistakes of 1999 (Jakob Nielsen, 1999) [1]

Top 10 Mistakes in Web Design (Jakob Neilsen, 2011) [2]

We gain nothing by "keeping the user on our site." The user doesn't care, to them it's all just content they want to look at. If they want to come back to our site they can use the back button, the most popular feature on a browser[3]. If we open new windows we are: littering the user's screen; breaking their chain of navigation; and if they're on a mobile device, consuming extra RAM and causing other windows to disappear prematurely.

[0] http://www.nngroup.com/articles/open-new-windows-for-pdfs/

[1] http://www.nngroup.com/articles/the-top-ten-web-design-mista...

[2] http://www.nngroup.com/articles/top-10-mistakes-web-design/

[3] http://www.useit.com/articles/browser-and-gui-chrome/

Re: Forcing links to open in new windows: an argument that should have ended

#50

Post by ecesena »

danielpal wrote: post #10

I completely disagree. In fact I find it worse when a link opens in the same tab and then I have to navigate back and find the place that I was at .vs. having to close a new tab I did not want. "And I think over a decade of user confusion and frustration resulting from target="_blank" backs that up." Do you have any links to to back this claim?

At Theneeds [1] we decided to open links to news in new tabs/windows (using target="_blank").

This is mainly for 2 reasons.

First, we expect our users to not necessarily be techy (in contrast to what Marco says "Most people know how to open your article’s outbound links in new tabs or windows, especially readers of a tech site").

Second, we want a consistent experience across all websites we open, and some of them forced us to open in new tabs. We usually embed news into an iframe, with a Theneeds' top bar for actions including vote, share and go back to the content stream. Unfortunately many news sites are currently preventing embedding (e.g., via the HTTP header X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN). We decided to open at least them (then, as I said, all) as users were frustrated by loosing access to the content stream.

[1] http://www.theneeds.com

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