Context. Context. Context. It's what we do.
Whenever you open an external site in the same window as your own site,
you've just blown any Context you had "out the window", so to speak.
We expect certain app-like behavior within our site to mimic other desktop
behaviors. Lots of a site's "domain" reference info, like online help,
errormessages, status popups, etc. are expected to appear as popup windows.
Seems sensible that - if I send you to info that's not in my site (an
external link) - then it'll appear in its own window (with it's own
behaviors).
Net/Net: Do I really want to voluntarily orphan my own site?
There may well be viable exceptions, but most casual links should open in
their own windows.
As an interim solution: I've always thought it would be helpful for my site
to have it's own startBar control (i.e. If I'm allowing you access to other
sites through my site, then I should take responsibility for helping you to
"manage" those new browser windows, too). The "tabbed browsers" we have now
are a step in the right direction, but a more robust multiwindow management
feature/tool could be very useful to our craft...
John Vaughan
The Communication Studio LLC
----- Original Message -----
From: "Trevor Thompson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 11:20 AM
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Should external links really open in the same
window?
Hi folks,
The conventional wisdom is that a link should not open a new window, even
if it's a link to another site. Neilsen listed this as number 9 in the top
10 design mistakes.
But an unofficial survey around our office found that most people prefer
links to new sites to open up in new windows/tabs. They said that new
windows or tabs make it easier to explore links to other, possibly-
irrelevant, but possibly-useful sites, and still come quickly back to the
main site at any time, exactly where you left it. Some people said they
*expect* sites to behave that way.
Should the rule that links should always open in the same window be
revisited? Does anyone know of any real study or data that relates to
this?
Trevor Thompson
User Experience Architect
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