[thelist] Is Target dead

Sarah Sweeney mr.sanders at designshift.com
Fri Jun 18 07:32:53 CDT 2004


Chris Price wrote:
>>This is good. Usability studies almost inevitably come to the conclusion
>>that new windows are harmful (and lead to panicked users wondering why
>>their back button is greyed out).
> 
> 
> The thing that bothers me is that 'designers' have been educating people to
> expect their browser to, for example, open external links in a new window,
> so that when a website behaves properly its not what they expect. I can
> imagine someone saying 'don't bother with the back button, it doesn't work
> on my browser.'

I'd like to speak up for those of us who *don't* think that opening 
external links in a new window is a bad thing. If I'm at a website and I 
click on a link that takes me to another website, I either don't bother 
going back to the original, or I go back and ctrl-click the link so I 
can have both sites open. (Well, these days I have Firefox, so links to 
a new domain open in a new tab anyway, but that's another story.)

Can someone send a link to an article or study that says new windows are 
bad, and why? "Panicked users wondering why their back button is greyed 
out" sounds overstated to me.

I'm also not quite sure what is "wrong" with web-based applications - 
but perhaps that's a subject for another thread.

-- 
Sarah Sweeney
Web Developer & Programmer
Portfolio :: http://sarah.designshift.com
Blog, etc :: http://hardedge.ca


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