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In application design, external links tend to open in a new tab (see Facebook, Twitter, etc...) It's been a standard on the web for almost a decade now.
by JeffreyKaine 11y ago
In application design, external links tend to open in a new tab (see Facebook, Twitter, etc...) It's been a standard on the web for almost a decade now.
- chainsaw10 11y agoMy feelings are mixed on this. On FB, I'm usually glad that links open in a new tab (well, I middle click them anyway, but sometimes I forget) because if they didn't, I'd have the huge problem of trying to infinite scroll my way back to where I was. On just some random business website, OTOH, I usually take it to mean the business owner (or developer) thought their site was so important, it should make me keep it open while I go to another link. I usually middle-click on HN anyway, but I feel like it's sort of nicer in a way, to be in control of that. Maybe HN feels like more of a page than an application to me because it doesn't use infinite scroll / a ton of custom Javascript behavior? I'm inclined to agree that web _applications_ should open external links in a new tab, but I'm not sure it's best for HN.