[thelist] Evolt Web Design Directory

Miraz Jordan miraz at firstbite.co.nz
Wed May 16 14:24:34 CDT 2001


At 23:12 +0930 16/05/2001, Lea wrote:
>Wednesday, May 16, 2001, 3:28:14 AM, Sandy wrote:
>>  Oh, and I'd love to hear debate on this if people feel differently, but
>>  personally, if it's a link outside my site, I make it open up a new browser.
>>  As a user, I LIKE this, because sometimes you end up linking your way thru
>>  several sites and forget that at the original source there was more you
>>  wanted to check out.  I end up stumbling across it again when I'm shutting
>>  down browsers, which otherwise I wouldn't have.
>
>No, cant agree with that one.
>You're (without meaning to disparage you) making the arrogant
>assumption that you have some 'higher' right to window space than what
>the user is asking for.
>As a user, I hate the designer making this sort of decision for me -
>if I want a new window open, I will click so a new one opens!

I'm with Lea on this, and for a couple of reasons:

The W3C Accessibility Guidelines say this:

10.1 Until user agents allow users to turn off spawned windows, do 
not cause pop-ups or other windows to appear and do not change the 
current window without informing the user. [Priority 2]
For example, in HTML, avoid using a frame whose target is a new window.

<http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/>

On a more personal level I routinely open new windows when browsing 
(Command click on a Mac). What really annoys me is when the designer 
has created their link in such a way that they wanted to open a new 
window (without telling me) and my attempt to open the link in a new 
window means it doesn't work. I don't know what coding's involved - 
maybe javascript which I don't know. Darned annoying though.

>[snip] Uhuh, I know the obvious comeback - "many users are so naive and
>inexperienced they dont know *how* to open in a new window".
>Well, so be it - doesnt justify you taking over their system

Yes.

I teach many many beginners. In our first 3 hour course about how to 
browse the web any new window generally completely flusters them. 
Many don't even know how to close windows! In our second, more 
advanced, course I show them how to use contextual menus to open new 
windows if they want them.

There can certainly be very good cases for the designer to cause new 
windows to open, but there should *always* be an explicit notice that 
this will happen.



Cheers,

Miraz

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