think we’ll have to agree to disagree, i wouldn’t say it breaks a site as nothing is broken it is purely a different UX. I personally can’t stand opening a link to a different site in the same tab. I hate clicking back. With tabs i can see a new tab has opened and i can close that knowing my original starting point is where i left it. If the original page has numerous links to external sites i can see which one i last clicked on as it will still be showing active and i can move to the next.
If you can teach my mum how to open a new tab by right clicking then i’ll concede She can cope with tabs and knows that for things like holiday/hotel comparison sites that the results list will remain on one tab and each of the hotel sites will open in a new tab so she can review each one without having to click back each time. She can leave numerous tabs open and switch between to check details/compare between them and close the ones she doesn’t want. For me i can’t see how that is ‘broken’ it makes far more sense than leaving the results page having to click back then going to another result etc. i wouldn’t want to have to remember to right click and click again to open in a new tab.
Then open those links in a new tab – it’s not rocket surgery, and I bet that the vast majority of webbists are capable of doing that. The only reason that they don’t is because they have become habituated into expecting those links to open in a new tab automatically.
The target attribute has been obsolete since 1997. Browsers are just waiting for people to finish updating their pages to meet the new 1997 standard so they can stop supporting the attribute without breaking people’s sites. Of course using it breaks sites for the vast majority of people who prefer to decide what opens where themselves and not everyone knows enough to override that attribute so that pages always open where they want. I have fixed my browser so that it will ignore any target attributes and open pages where I want them to depending on where the link goes rather than on some attribute that has only ever annoyed people who don’t know how to reconfigure their browser.
On a user’s perspective, I don’t see why outbound links are bad for any site, unless if these lead to ones with spammy, malware-rich, and unscrupulous content.
Outbound links come in handy if you’re linking to a study or a journal to validate your points and give your users a bit more info. It’s best to have them open in new tabs though, considering that you’d still want them to stay on your site.
That aside, a good amount of internal linking (leading to related content) would help out in retaining your users.
Honestly, anything that is convenient for your users will always be good for your website.
So you are saying that i now have to either do 2 clicks (right click then click to open new tab + wait time for the menu to open) or physically move my other hand to hold ctrl and then click and that is preferable for user experience? I may be capable of doing it, my mum might be capable of doing it. Do i want to do it? no! i expect external links to open in a new tab. You might disagree with that and that is your opinion, until i have proof that users of my site don’t want that i will continue to do that and expect that to happen on other peoples sites.
Um yes that is my point. If people expect it then that becomes the standard. You can tell me in 1997 that it was decided to be phased out but if people use it and expect it then it becomes the standard. You are doing the exact opposite and expecting users to be more educated and follow some outdated ux just to use your site. A lot has changed since 1997.
I do leave sites that get me lost by opening new sites in the same tab. fact. I do accidentally close a site thinking i am just closing a tab and lose everything.fact. maybe i am the only person that does this.
You keep using the term ‘break’ can you explain what is broken? if i put that attribute on a link it opens in a new tab (assuming it returns a page correctly). If they removed it the sites would not break.
I am sorry but that is just wrong. I am prepared to retract that when firefox, opera, chrome, IE, safari, the android browser on my phone etc remove the tab feature and the feature that colours the tabs to show which it came from. There are tabs for a reason.
If you are still using IE6 and it does open new windows each time then fair enough.
either way that is what i do on my sites and expect it from others. If you don’t do that on your sites then i probably won’t stay that long on them.
[quote=“Noppy, post:27, topic:197387”]
You keep using the term ‘break’ can you explain what is broken? if i put that attribute on a link it opens in a new tab (assuming it returns a page correctly). If they removed it the sites would not break.
[/quote]If you as a web designer set a link to open in a new tab and I don’t want to open it in a new tab, then there is nothing I can do about it¹, I’m stuck with it and I end up with tabs spawning all over the place that I don’t want.
If I as a web designer don’t set a link to open in a new tab and you want to open it in a new tab, you can open it in a new tab if you want to. I’m not taking that choice away from you, I’m letting you decide what you want to do, rather than dictating what I want you to do.
If you think that your opinion of how your site visitors should behave is more important than theirs then carry on, but you’re likely to be annoying a lot of people in the process.
¹ Actually I can because I’m still using Opera 12, but the vast majority of people don’t have that option.
There is code that can be added to other browsers to introduce that option but having to add something to your browser just to fix the pages that Noppy broke is not something many are likely to do. More likely they’ll just avoid the broken pages, restart their browser to recover their broken back button and never go to Noppy’s site again.
Seriously look up the definition of broken! i believe i have been pretty fair in my arguments as to why i prefer opening links in new windows by giving examples and links to content that gives further explanation. All you have done is tell me that my pages are ‘broken’ because i use an attribute that i am fully entitled to use. My websites get almost 1 million users (not hits actual users) per year so i think i am happy with what i am doing. You have provided nothing but your opinion and claim it as proof that it should be done that way and say that i am wrong and have a broken site and will not even agree to disagree. I have continually said that i prefer it that way and people i have spoken to generally prefer it that way but i have not claimed that everybody wants it that way or your sites are broken or that you aren’t a good web designer.
As a web designer do you think you should load images on your pages? you are forcing the user to wait for images to download why don’t you just provide links to images! you can open an image if you want to. Lucky you can block images and choose to download when you want. It’s a bit unfair forcing the user to do something they might not want to do…
Don’t listen, be rude, don’t accept (doesn’t mean you have to do it yourself) another persons point of view or thinking, don’t change your ways because in 1997 (18yrs ago! you would think if it was a problem it would have been solved by now) someone told you you should do it a certain way and i guess we’ll have to wait and see if your way is better than mine.
But right now my visitor stats are only going up (that i can prove) so i think i’ll stick with my ‘broken’ site for now thanks
I don’t think I’m going to chime in on this debate, but one point of clarification. I used to deal in IT support, a bit, and from my experience, users are just as confused by same-tab linking as they are by new-tab linking. If they’re the type of user that will be confused… they’re just going to be confused. They either wonder why the link took them to some other site, and want to go back, and then page data may be different or else they forget where they were and they don’t know how to use history, or hate having to click back five times to arrive. And they don’t know about things like right click and open in new tab.
On the flip side, if you force new tabs? That confuses the heck out of people for all the reasons already indicated here - they don’t know where the opened link went. Or they change focus to it, then don’t know why back won’t work or where the old page went.
So I find user confusion to be a poor argument here, as I don’t see that it makes a big impact either way.
Now, if the subjects of discussion are experienced Internet users, who would prefer a choice… that’s a different question.
Edit: Just clarifying the difference between those two usergroups in my mind. I feel like this discussion really revolves around the more capable user-set.
So if beginners are just as confused either way and experienced users prefer a choice then that explains why the standards were changed to make the target attribute obsolete as the only purpose of that attribute is to remove user choices.
That’s definitely a way to look at it! I was just clarifying the difference between the two user types, since some of the argument seemed to focus on one and some the other. I’ve really never heard people disagree over all of this before, so I’m just listening on this one.
This argument is pointless as you are stuck in the past. It’s like arguing grammar with an old person they will never accept modern vocabulary because they were taught a certain way.
In 1997 i didn’t even have an email address! pretty sure we had a 56kbps modem too but a lot has changed including the way people browse the web. If you can give me something to read that makes a good argument i will read it. But so far your argument consists of you saying that the attribute is obsolete and that people in general don’t like external links to open in a new tab because you say so. Where is the surveys/evidence to support this?
I don’t mind debates and i don’t mind changing my mind when someone can give me evidence to the contrary but so far all i see is opinion and right now i am happier with mine.
It doesn’t annoy me either since I have my browser set to ignore target attributes completely as browsers should have started doing once they introduced the right click to specify where to open links…
It seems that HTML 5 reinstated this useless attribute but then a lot of HTML 5 reintroduces support for HTML 3.2 code that is no longer necessary simply because people keep insisting on using them.
You can tell how professional a modern site is by whether they
Anyway, even those sites that do make that pathetic request don’t get to choose whether the page opens in a new window or a new tab - that choice depends on the browser.
At my home computer, it’s a relatively minor annoyance. At my work computer, it’s a slightly bigger annoyance, because it’s a cruddy slow computer and having too many tabs open at once in a browser can cause a noticeable slow-down. But on my mobile it’s a right, royal PITA, because the browser can only cope with 6 tabs open at once and if you try to open more than that then it just loses some of them. And if you open a new tab and then press the back button (eg because you didn’t realise it had opened in a new tab), the behaviour can get flaky and again it’s very easy to end up with tabs dropping off the overflow because you didn’t realise how many additional ones had opened up.
But that isn’t what i have said. I have already given an example of where it works well. Comparison sites for example (which are everywhere these days) often open in new tabs so you keep the list you just search for and can compare. I don’t see that as ‘please don’t leave my site’ i see that as incredibly useful for UX. I certainly hate sites that try and stop backbutton or have an alert, but this is where i find a new tab better as i can close it rather than fighting with the backbutton on a rubbish site and going back 3 pages on the site i came from.
Whilst my family, friends and work colleages aren’t everyone in the entire world, i watch how they use the internet and if there aren’t multiple tabs open on their computers i am surprised. If you need to read one page at a time moving in a linear flow through webpages then clicking back each (however many) times then fine, but that isn’t the way i personally have seen (the majority of) people around me use web browsers and certainly not the way i use them. I have 8 tabs open right now…must be a slow day.
Perhaps one could assume that if the attribute is still being used and site visitors are not voting with their feet, then it could also be assumed that people don’t actually mind/care or may actually find it useful. Therefore your assertion that it is a useless attribute does not, in the real world, seem to hold water. Unless you have evidence to show that more people don’t like external links opening in new tabs than in the same tab, this argument is pointless and circular.
On desktop, FWIW, I would almost always prefer external links open in new tabs. I prefer it so much that I don’t often wait to find out if it’s set, I do it manually myself. When I forget, and it does what I want, I’m pleasantly surprised. I understand, though, how it could annoy some people.
THAT is the first really good point that has been made here that’s not just essentially browsing preference of the individuals here (including me), in my opinion. With the mobile market as it is, they NEED to be considered, and I can’t imagine anyone prefers EVERYTHING in new tabs on mobile, probably not even external sites usually.
interesting point. On the flip side is it better on a mobile that some things open in a new tab so that you can if you want return to the original page quickly rather than having to wait for 3g connection to reload the page. For example if it was a site with a map with links on that you had to reload wouldn’t it be more annoying to wait for the map to reload when you’ve had to hit back each time?
I’m not a big mobile user so i don’t really know but the above example would make sense to me with my limited knowledge.
She can cope with tabs and knows that for things like holiday/hotel comparison sites that the results list will remain on one tab and each of the hotel sites will open in a new tab so she can review each one without having to click back each time. She can leave numerous tabs open and switch between to check details/compare between them and close the ones she doesn’t want. For me i can’t see how that is ‘broken’ it makes far more sense than leaving the results page having to click back then going to another result etc. i wouldn’t want to have to remember to right click and click again to open in a new tab.