As I said each to their own, but from the point of view not everyone understands the net. When we did research into this we found that when a user clicks on something in a link, we found that 98% of the time the user would close the other browser window (whether by choice or accident) now if you want a user to stay on the site I would advise against this and look at ways of using either flash or DHTML to do the work.
For example for a contract that I did a few years ago, I created a tab system that would imitate the windows tab through DHTML. However anyway you look at it, you have to do what is best at the time. I personally have been using the net since around the 1990 when it was all unix based, and even I from time to time will also end up closing the main window and get frustrated. I never mentioned AD pop ups, and have always used layers inside layers to do the work. If this doesn't make sense then you haven't been developing applications long enough. What I mean by this is that a page is delivered, with all the navigation and links and buttons on the outside of a layer and the layer can then hold the part that needs to change. Almost exactly the same way that frames works, when confronted with something like this the user seems to be happier to use than use pop up windows. Remember this rule of thumb that applies to any site without pop ups as well, the user has a very limited attention span and will NOT like to see too many windows on the screen. Why, because you are asking them to concentrate on more than one thing. After you have popped up an extra window I will guarantee you that they will close the other window before looking at the pop up. Now you have to ask yourself one thing, do you want the user to close this window and loose the attention of him/her from you site. If you want to really confuse anyone then by all means go and use pop up windows, but personally I avoid any site that pops up windows now and will never ever go back to it, and everyone I know that browsers the net is now doing the same thing. Remember it is all about attention spans, keeping their attention is also half the battle. And as for your example I did this 3-4 years ago for a large company here in Australia, with links to the side for navigation to other articles with the main article on the content layer, without using pop ups. And that example is a very good one in loosing people's attention spans when you start opening more windows!! Again if it works for you then go for it, I am only telling you my experience from hearing complaints or suggestions from the users on how to approve the site more. Which a lot of larger companies do to help keep their users attached to their sites and not their competitors. -----Original Message----- From: Dick Applebaum [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, 8 July 2002 12:15 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: (Opinion) Pop-up or not to pop-up? There are times when DHTML layers make sense. There are also times when multiple windows ( popup or child) windows make sense -- when you want to compare before and after when you want to view more than one thing at a time I too, do not like those ad windows that automatically popup (to irritate you) when you visit a site But say a user is browsing a list of article abstracts... he sees one of interest. clicks on it... up pops the detail (as a result of the user action) he can read this article or browse other abstracts -- without ever having to redisplay (bandwith) the original page. For several years. I could only get a dial-up line (wilds of Tucson) so I really appreciate not having the delay of unnecessarily redisplaying a page Happiness is *never* having to go back (click the back button) . Dick ______________________________________________________________________ Signup for the Fusion Authority news alert and keep up with the latest news in ColdFusion and related topics. http://www.fusionauthority.com/signup.cfm FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
