5 ms·

Forcing links to open in new windows: an argument that should have ended

68 points by SmileyKeith 13y ago

dictum 13y ago
Tapping and holding for 2 seconds and then choosing "Open in a new tab" every time you want to open a link in a new tab in iOS gets tiring fast. I wish Apple would introduce a better UI for this.
- city41 13y ago
  Fighting a silly virtual keyboard on a phone gets really old fast too (physical keyboards are vastly better). IMO phones and tablets have a long ways to go in the usability department, hold for new window just being one of their many problems.
  - snowwrestler 13y ago
    I had no idea that Blackberries ship with a dedicated "open link in new tab" physical button.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- tylermauthe 13y ago
  Cool idea! What would be the input paradigm? Two finger tap?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - elwell 13y ago
    iOS not OS X.
- elpool2 13y ago
  Yeah I wish there was a better way too. I have like 50 pages accidentally added to my reading list because "Add to reading list" is right next to "open in new tab" in that menu.
- hnha 13y ago
  It's quite perfect in opera mobile classic. Hold for about a second, maybe less, then the context menu appears where new tab is a millimeter to the top.
Aardwolf 13y ago
IMHO, there should always have existed only one single type of link: a link. The user should be able to choose to open it in this window, a new tab, or a new window. Browser allow you to open a normal link in new tab or new window, but unfortunately I don't know any web browser that allows the user to force opening a link in the current tab :(
- w1ntermute 13y ago
  Firefox: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/959136 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/959136 Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/open-in-this-tab/nbfcicpgfkgghmoddmekmefmndmjajac https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/open-in-this-tab/n...
- gumby 13y ago
  run a rewrite proxy (e.g. Glimmerblocker on MacOS or on your network) and you can get rid of crud like this, those annoying floating bars etc etc. It seems a million bad web "designers" don't realize that the page is for the reader's benefit (else they'll stop coming).
10char 13y ago
Another poor example that comes to mind is the search results on Quora, which open with target=_blank even though they link to the same site
tg3 13y ago
I'm glad he clarified that. For non tech-savvy users who are using an application, I think `target="_blank"` is a really helpful way to avoid "I've lost my work!" support emails. Auto-saving their work is helpful too. I've stood over my mother's shoulder too many times when she closes a tab and says "where did that last window go?" to agree with the blanket statement of "target blank is Bad".
- cmelbye 13y ago
  But he didn't make a blanket statement of "target _blank is bad". He agrees with you. > I believe the former is justifiable, the latter isn’t As he said in the article, it's justifiable if the user is in the middle of an important session that they probably don't want to navigate away from. For most people, reading a news article doesn't constitute that.
raisinbread 13y ago
For folks on the web every day this makes sense. I'm not sure my Mom, when browsing, knows how to decide when opening in a new window is important, much less how to do it. It's also kinda nice when you're using an iframe, and you don't want the link to be followed inside a small subsection of the viewport. I totally agree that it gets abused, but it does (at least seem to) have some valid uses.
jcomis 13y ago
I think this is more opinion than web standard.
- msandford 13y ago
  Yeah it definitely is. Thankfully there's no way to legislate "make it impossible for links to open in new windows/tabs because this one site does it and I think it's a bad idea in some cases." Because otherwise a thousand rabid Marco fans would start a new PAC to do just that, breaking it's usefulness in the many cases where you need to do the right thing and not destroy a session.
danielpal 13y ago
I completely disagree. In fact I find it worse when a link opens in the same tab and then I have to navigate back and find the place that I was at .vs. having to close a new tab I did not want. "And I think over a decade of user confusion and frustration resulting from target="_blank" backs that up." Do you have any links to to back this claim?
- city41 13y ago
  But you can always choose to open the link in a new window, quite trivially. Let the user decide.
- SDGT 13y ago
  Anecdotal evidence to combat anecdotal evidence, but where do we stop and let the user make some damn decisions? Are users really too stupid to know ctrl+click, middle click, or right click->open in new tab? Personally I side with the author, as I open just about everything with middle click, but I also have a lot of dumb users that rely on target _blank like it's the only thing preventing them from spiraling into a psychosis filled chasm of self doubt. The sheer number of people who have marveled at the idea of opening a page in a new tab when shown kind of makes me uncomfortable. I really want to fix this, and have users understand their browser more than "it makes the googles".
  - elwell 13y ago
    > Are users really too stupid[...] Yes
  - tannerc 13y ago
    If you commonly refer to your users/visitors as "dumb" then your problem isn't with links. Alas, it's worth considering personal bias. Simply because you understand the fundamentals of the web and how to use modern technology doesn't mean it's the norm or standard (yet). Because someone doesn't know how to "middle click" does not make them stupid.
    - SDGT 13y ago
tylermauthe 13y ago
Here's the more direct link: http://www.marco.org/2014/01/10/target-blank http://www.marco.org/2014/01/10/target-blank
peterbe 13y ago
But I really really like that when I'm in a single-page web app like Gmail, all links are target=_blank.
d0m 13y ago
I use the rule "If it links OUTSIDE of my site (I.e. different domain), I use target blank". If it's some kind of activity and navigating away would interrupt it, I'd rather use a modal..
elwell 13y ago
I Ctrl/Cmd + Click most HN posts so I can start reading the comments while the link is loading.
- rfnslyr 13y ago
  TIL, thanks. I usually just middle click but this earlier.
  - elwell 13y ago
    TIL middle-click. :)
natural219 13y ago
I'm confused. He says: Forcing links to open in new windows has two main purposes: 1) To avoid disturbing an important session in progress for a temporary digression, such as FAQ/documentation links in the sidebar when you’re doing online banking. And then: I believe the former is justifiable He gives a good reason for using target="_blank", and then...okay, what? Sounds like a good reason. Even then, his second reason to not use target=_blank clearly sounds like a normative difference than a technical difference. He doesn't "like" the idea of keeping people on your site...so what? Don't use it, then. But you've clearly identified a positive ROI technique for keeping people on your site. This post really confuses me.
- gjm11 13y ago
  > and then...okay, what? Sounds like a good reason. But one that doesn't (in his opinion, explicitly stated shortly after -- and also, for what it's worth, in mine) apply to the particular behaviour he was criticizing. > But you've clearly identified a positive ROI technique for keeping people on your site. But also one that (in his opinion, and for what it's worth also mine) is likely to annoy and/or confuse users, which means two things. 1. If you happen to care about users' welfare as well as about your "positive ROI" -- in other words, if you see them as people rather than as tools to be manipulated in a way that brings you the most benefit -- then their annoyance and/or confusion is a reason not to use the technique. (It might be outweighed by that "positive ROI", but it's a reason.) 2. Even if you do see your users only as tools for increasing your profits or mindshare or whatever, annoying and/or confusing them may have bad long-term consequences. They may stay on your site longer right now, as you intend -- but they may also be that bit more likely to abandon you for some other site that doesn't annoy or confuse them so much. So by using this technique you might be taking short-term gains at long-term cost. (It seems to me that while #2 is a bit subtle and might well be too weak an effect to matter much, #1 is really obvious. I am confused at your professed confusion.)
- billforsternz 13y ago
  He is saying that using a disruptive technique is good for users if it helps them avoid an incomplete online banking transaction. However using the same disruptive technique only because you desperately want the user to come back and finish reading your blog post is not such a good idea.
subpixel 13y ago
Far worse, in my opinion, are sites that disable command/control-click (open link in new tab), either on purpose or b/c of lousy javascript. I probably command-click 99% of links. How often do I, as a user, want to leave the current page and enter an entirely new context, within the same browser tab? Almost never.
- gumby 13y ago
  I agree -- why would someone disable this? Luckily so few people do this that I simply don't visit those sites (looking at you, fandango!)
acoleman616 13y ago
I think like assuming people know how to open links in new tabs on their own (i.e. right click, "Open in New Tab") is completely misguided.
danso 13y ago
This reminds me of an Etsy engineering talk about A/B testing: http://mcfunley.com/design-for-continuous-experimentation http://mcfunley.com/design-for-continuous-experimentation Etsy employees were so sure that customers would love having blank/multi-windows, because if you shop on Etsy a lot, how else would you keep track of interesting things while moving down the list? According to slide 20, 70 percent more people in the testing group gave up and left the site after getting a new tab.
throwaway420 13y ago
> Most people know how to open your article’s outbound links in new tabs or windows, especially readers of a tech site. Readers of a technical site? Maybe. Average people? Not a chance.
- larrys 13y ago
  One of the reasons I've always felt that the ubiquitous "tech guy" undercharges for what he does is that he doesn't see what he does as being that difficult and feels that he isn't justified in getting well paid for something so simple. This of course is an entirely separate topic than the point you are making (which I agree with) but it's a similar issue with not being able to understand "average" or "typical" or what we sometimes call "normals" (or is often called "people in fly over country"). I was on my Mom's mac and a window popped up for her to do the a software update. I said "oh you have to do that" (had security updates) and she said "I don't need any new software" she had no clue.
pyduan 13y ago
I used to agree with the author, but these days I find myself actually preferring having a link opening in a new tab, so I'm not actually that irritated when a page uses target="_blank" if it's somewhat justified (ie. if there's a reasonable expectation that I'll click the link as a temporary digression, before going back to the original page). The problem is that sadly, closing a tab is often easier in practice than using the "back" functionality: - many websites are poorly coded and break the "back" functionality, making it (sadly) unreliable. On pages that load content dynamically, results are not always predictable either - my left hand is already positioned in such a way that hitting cmd/ctrl + w is trivial, whereas going back requires reaching all the way to the backspace button/the mouse/doing a multi-finger gesture on the trackpad - if you had to submit content to get to the current page, usually going back will trigger a "confirm form resubmission" warning - on mobile devices, the "back" functionality is not very prominently displayed. On Chrome, you have to click the "more" icon to access it In addition, manually opening in a new tab (which requires right-clicking, middle-clicking, or ctrl/cmd + click) is not always as trivial as people imply: - people who are using a trackpad do not have a middle button - right-clicking is has not been part of Apple's design for a long time. You can perform them using cmd + click or using two fingers on the trackpad (I believe it is disabled by default), but it's not as convenient - On a MacBook, the modifier keys (fn/control/option/command) are all placed next to each other and it's not always obvious which one does what. It's easy to get confused or to accidentally hit the wrong one. I've personally done option + click by mistake countless times, which opens a prompt to save the link, and it's always pretty frustrating - the right-click equivalent on touch screens (long press) is a bit clunky And this is coming from a tech-savvy user who actually knows about these options -- you'd be surprised at how many people don't. Of course, having the ability to make the decision is important for power users, but I can't help but wonder if for less sophisticated users the practice is not so bad after all. The usability studies I could find are pretty dated and I would not be surprised that usage patterns have changed.
- city41 13y ago
  Right clicking is a native part of MacOS now and has been for quite a while. Apple's own mice ship with right click enabled out of the box as do the trackpads (I believe you are incorrect that it is disabled by default. Even the demo machines at the Apple store have two fingers to right click enabled.). I agree with the post author. Please let me decide when to open a new window. This is further complicated that links can be configured to do just about anything with JS. Nothing more frustrating than not knowing what a seemingly inconsequential "help" link in a checkout process will do. Usually it pops open a new window or reveals a hidden div, but sometimes it navigates away and blows away the entire form you've filled out. Honestly the hyperlink as it stands now is a very poor UI construct due to rampant abuse.
randallsquared 13y ago
The problem is that due to javascript, bizarre behavior from browsers, and now the new HTML5 back functionality, a lot of us have been trained to avoid the back button for fear of what might happen; I religiously open in a new tab anyway unless I'm quite sure I'm completely done with a page, so the default of "open in a new tab" is totally fine with me.
SethMurphy 13y ago
I used to work on a site that served the medical profession (read large set of returning users with varied technical skill, but all fairly intelligent) and we had an icon next to non-html resources and links that were external. External links used target='_blank' which the site visitors surely learned quickly without having to Google it. I found this to be a fair compromise to keep users engaged on the site and be polite with your intentions. Most links were provided in the context and in support of the original page so keeping it open did not seem rude to me, but the proper UI. NOTE: This was a not-for-profit, so ROI was not a factor in the decision, only usability with possibly a little liability protection thrown in as an added bonus.
barrkel 13y ago
At this point, I middle-click pretty much all links, and then decide to close the window or not depending on whether I want to continue the session or not. Since I use tree-style tabs, nesting is effectively my navigation stack - except that it's a navigation tree, which also avoids the problem whereby you lose your "forward" stack if you go back and choose a different path. And for tabs that I want to return to after closing, I use undo tab close - with TabMixPlus, I have the last 10 closed tabs available for reopening. The combination of TabMixPlus and (especially) TreeStyleTabs are the reason I've never been able to take Chrome seriously.
- esusatyo 13y ago
  And those websites that don't honour middle-click or cmd-click to open in new tabs should die in hell. Looking at you, LinkedIn.
WiseWeasel 13y ago
I wish HN used target="_blank" for story links. I'm often reloading the HN front page, wasting everyone's network resources because I forgot to go back and closed the tab instead. Opening offsite links in a new tab should be the norm for most sites, with few exceptions. Bloggers probably shouldn't open links in new tabs, because I'm rarely following multiple links from a single blog, but directories and news listing sites absolutely should. In addition to sites where following an offsite link might interrupt my session in an annoying manner (his first case), if there's a high likelihood I'll want to navigate to multiple links from a single page, then they should open in a new tab. Temporary digressions like contextual help text should probably get loaded into a hidden div and use JS to display/hide rather than open in a new tab.
EmmEff 13y ago
I didn't read the article. I am getting tired of Marco.
jeffehobbs 13y ago
Disagree, with an if/else: When the site is a set of links aggregated (Twitter, FB, Hacker News) I would prefer that the link open a new tab. When it's a blog or a news site or anything else, the link should just be a link.
snowwrestler 13y ago
Marco is right that the argument should have ended long ago. But he's 180 degress wrong about how it should have ended, at least based on the usability testing I have done or overseen. A link in the middle of a sentence interrupts any mental session in progress. The 7th word in his post is a link...does he really think that anyone intends to click that click and never return to his site? To at least finish the sentence? I guarantee that if he sat and watched 100 of his readers click that link, all 100 would use a contextual menu (e.g. right click) or chord (Ctrl-click) to open that link in a new window. I could understand the argument against target=_blank back in the good ol' days of IE6 on XP, when browsers were not tabbed and OS's were not good at managing tons of windows. Back then creating new windows all over the place was annoying. Those days are gone. With tabs and window management UI (like Expose), it is now no trouble at all for anyone to manage dozens of open web sessions at once. Adding one more is far more lightweight than whisking your readers away suddenly in the middle of a sentence.
cookingrobot 13y ago
There's an easy UI fix for this. Clicking back should close the tab. Anyone want to build this Chrome add-on for me?
threepipeproblm 13y ago
I agree that the Web is regressing on this as certain players have consolidated players and decided they can get away with it... I think all the Gawker blogs de-evolved some time ago.
arunitc 13y ago
No it makes a lot of sense in a number of situations today especially with ajax and dynamically updating web pages. I have a web application where users navigate to, lets say, invoices through a tree structure of Accounts -> Packages -> Invoices. Clicking on edit of the Invoice opens a new webpage. If they click the back button, users see the list of accounts all collapsed and will have to perform search, and navigate down again to the account. In this instance users have specifically asked me to open the edits in a new window. In a few cases, I have edits open in the same tab as a popup, but in a number of instances that is not possible for pages with a lot of functionality/fields.
biscotti 13y ago
This functionality needs to be preserved so certain applications can follow efficient workflows. An example of this can be found in a django admin site where a new modal is launched to enter a foreign key relationship, this would be unwieldy & distracting if it were to open in a new tab, taking the user away from information that may help them in making a choice and disrupting their flow.

68 points by SmileyKeith 13y ago

Tapping and holding for 2 seconds and then choosing "Open in a new tab" every time you want to open a link in a new tab in iOS gets tiring fast. I wish Apple would introduce a better UI for this.

city41 13y ago
Fighting a silly virtual keyboard on a phone gets really old fast too (physical keyboards are vastly better). IMO phones and tablets have a long ways to go in the usability department, hold for new window just being one of their many problems.
- snowwrestler 13y ago
  I had no idea that Blackberries ship with a dedicated "open link in new tab" physical button.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
deleted 13y ago
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tylermauthe 13y ago
Cool idea! What would be the input paradigm? Two finger tap?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- elwell 13y ago
  iOS not OS X.
elpool2 13y ago
Yeah I wish there was a better way too. I have like 50 pages accidentally added to my reading list because "Add to reading list" is right next to "open in new tab" in that menu.
hnha 13y ago
It's quite perfect in opera mobile classic. Hold for about a second, maybe less, then the context menu appears where new tab is a millimeter to the top.

Aardwolf 13y ago

IMHO, there should always have existed only one single type of link: a link. The user should be able to choose to open it in this window, a new tab, or a new window. Browser allow you to open a normal link in new tab or new window, but unfortunately I don't know any web browser that allows the user to force opening a link in the current tab :(

w1ntermute 13y ago
Firefox: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/959136 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/959136 Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/open-in-this-tab/nbfcicpgfkgghmoddmekmefmndmjajac https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/open-in-this-tab/n...
gumby 13y ago
run a rewrite proxy (e.g. Glimmerblocker on MacOS or on your network) and you can get rid of crud like this, those annoying floating bars etc etc. It seems a million bad web "designers" don't realize that the page is for the reader's benefit (else they'll stop coming).

10char 13y ago

Another poor example that comes to mind is the search results on Quora, which open with target=_blank even though they link to the same site

tg3 13y ago

I'm glad he clarified that. For non tech-savvy users who are using an application, I think `target="_blank"` is a really helpful way to avoid "I've lost my work!" support emails. Auto-saving their work is helpful too. I've stood over my mother's shoulder too many times when she closes a tab and says "where did that last window go?" to agree with the blanket statement of "target blank is Bad".

cmelbye 13y ago
But he didn't make a blanket statement of "target _blank is bad". He agrees with you. > I believe the former is justifiable, the latter isn’t As he said in the article, it's justifiable if the user is in the middle of an important session that they probably don't want to navigate away from. For most people, reading a news article doesn't constitute that.

raisinbread 13y ago

For folks on the web every day this makes sense. I'm not sure my Mom, when browsing, knows how to decide when opening in a new window is important, much less how to do it. It's also kinda nice when you're using an iframe, and you don't want the link to be followed inside a small subsection of the viewport. I totally agree that it gets abused, but it does (at least seem to) have some valid uses.

jcomis 13y ago

I think this is more opinion than web standard.

msandford 13y ago
Yeah it definitely is. Thankfully there's no way to legislate "make it impossible for links to open in new windows/tabs because this one site does it and I think it's a bad idea in some cases." Because otherwise a thousand rabid Marco fans would start a new PAC to do just that, breaking it's usefulness in the many cases where you need to do the right thing and not destroy a session.

danielpal 13y ago

I completely disagree. In fact I find it worse when a link opens in the same tab and then I have to navigate back and find the place that I was at .vs. having to close a new tab I did not want. "And I think over a decade of user confusion and frustration resulting from target="_blank" backs that up." Do you have any links to to back this claim?

city41 13y ago
But you can always choose to open the link in a new window, quite trivially. Let the user decide.
SDGT 13y ago
Anecdotal evidence to combat anecdotal evidence, but where do we stop and let the user make some damn decisions? Are users really too stupid to know ctrl+click, middle click, or right click->open in new tab? Personally I side with the author, as I open just about everything with middle click, but I also have a lot of dumb users that rely on target _blank like it's the only thing preventing them from spiraling into a psychosis filled chasm of self doubt. The sheer number of people who have marveled at the idea of opening a page in a new tab when shown kind of makes me uncomfortable. I really want to fix this, and have users understand their browser more than "it makes the googles".
- elwell 13y ago
  > Are users really too stupid[...] Yes
- tannerc 13y ago
  If you commonly refer to your users/visitors as "dumb" then your problem isn't with links. Alas, it's worth considering personal bias. Simply because you understand the fundamentals of the web and how to use modern technology doesn't mean it's the norm or standard (yet). Because someone doesn't know how to "middle click" does not make them stupid.
  - SDGT 13y ago

tylermauthe 13y ago

Here's the more direct link: http://www.marco.org/2014/01/10/target-blank http://www.marco.org/2014/01/10/target-blank

peterbe 13y ago

But I really really like that when I'm in a single-page web app like Gmail, all links are target=_blank.

d0m 13y ago

I use the rule "If it links OUTSIDE of my site (I.e. different domain), I use target blank". If it's some kind of activity and navigating away would interrupt it, I'd rather use a modal..

elwell 13y ago

I Ctrl/Cmd + Click most HN posts so I can start reading the comments while the link is loading.

rfnslyr 13y ago
TIL, thanks. I usually just middle click but this earlier.
- elwell 13y ago
  TIL middle-click. :)

natural219 13y ago

I'm confused. He says: Forcing links to open in new windows has two main purposes: 1) To avoid disturbing an important session in progress for a temporary digression, such as FAQ/documentation links in the sidebar when you’re doing online banking. And then: I believe the former is justifiable He gives a good reason for using target="_blank", and then...okay, what? Sounds like a good reason. Even then, his second reason to not use target=_blank clearly sounds like a normative difference than a technical difference. He doesn't "like" the idea of keeping people on your site...so what? Don't use it, then. But you've clearly identified a positive ROI technique for keeping people on your site. This post really confuses me.

gjm11 13y ago
> and then...okay, what? Sounds like a good reason. But one that doesn't (in his opinion, explicitly stated shortly after -- and also, for what it's worth, in mine) apply to the particular behaviour he was criticizing. > But you've clearly identified a positive ROI technique for keeping people on your site. But also one that (in his opinion, and for what it's worth also mine) is likely to annoy and/or confuse users, which means two things. 1. If you happen to care about users' welfare as well as about your "positive ROI" -- in other words, if you see them as people rather than as tools to be manipulated in a way that brings you the most benefit -- then their annoyance and/or confusion is a reason not to use the technique. (It might be outweighed by that "positive ROI", but it's a reason.) 2. Even if you do see your users only as tools for increasing your profits or mindshare or whatever, annoying and/or confusing them may have bad long-term consequences. They may stay on your site longer right now, as you intend -- but they may also be that bit more likely to abandon you for some other site that doesn't annoy or confuse them so much. So by using this technique you might be taking short-term gains at long-term cost. (It seems to me that while #2 is a bit subtle and might well be too weak an effect to matter much, #1 is really obvious. I am confused at your professed confusion.)
billforsternz 13y ago
He is saying that using a disruptive technique is good for users if it helps them avoid an incomplete online banking transaction. However using the same disruptive technique only because you desperately want the user to come back and finish reading your blog post is not such a good idea.

subpixel 13y ago

Far worse, in my opinion, are sites that disable command/control-click (open link in new tab), either on purpose or b/c of lousy javascript. I probably command-click 99% of links. How often do I, as a user, want to leave the current page and enter an entirely new context, within the same browser tab? Almost never.

gumby 13y ago
I agree -- why would someone disable this? Luckily so few people do this that I simply don't visit those sites (looking at you, fandango!)

acoleman616 13y ago

I think like assuming people know how to open links in new tabs on their own (i.e. right click, "Open in New Tab") is completely misguided.

danso 13y ago

This reminds me of an Etsy engineering talk about A/B testing: http://mcfunley.com/design-for-continuous-experimentation http://mcfunley.com/design-for-continuous-experimentation Etsy employees were so sure that customers would love having blank/multi-windows, because if you shop on Etsy a lot, how else would you keep track of interesting things while moving down the list? According to slide 20, 70 percent more people in the testing group gave up and left the site after getting a new tab.

throwaway420 13y ago

> Most people know how to open your article’s outbound links in new tabs or windows, especially readers of a tech site. Readers of a technical site? Maybe. Average people? Not a chance.

larrys 13y ago
One of the reasons I've always felt that the ubiquitous "tech guy" undercharges for what he does is that he doesn't see what he does as being that difficult and feels that he isn't justified in getting well paid for something so simple. This of course is an entirely separate topic than the point you are making (which I agree with) but it's a similar issue with not being able to understand "average" or "typical" or what we sometimes call "normals" (or is often called "people in fly over country"). I was on my Mom's mac and a window popped up for her to do the a software update. I said "oh you have to do that" (had security updates) and she said "I don't need any new software" she had no clue.

pyduan 13y ago

I used to agree with the author, but these days I find myself actually preferring having a link opening in a new tab, so I'm not actually that irritated when a page uses target="_blank" if it's somewhat justified (ie. if there's a reasonable expectation that I'll click the link as a temporary digression, before going back to the original page). The problem is that sadly, closing a tab is often easier in practice than using the "back" functionality: - many websites are poorly coded and break the "back" functionality, making it (sadly) unreliable. On pages that load content dynamically, results are not always predictable either - my left hand is already positioned in such a way that hitting cmd/ctrl + w is trivial, whereas going back requires reaching all the way to the backspace button/the mouse/doing a multi-finger gesture on the trackpad - if you had to submit content to get to the current page, usually going back will trigger a "confirm form resubmission" warning - on mobile devices, the "back" functionality is not very prominently displayed. On Chrome, you have to click the "more" icon to access it In addition, manually opening in a new tab (which requires right-clicking, middle-clicking, or ctrl/cmd + click) is not always as trivial as people imply: - people who are using a trackpad do not have a middle button - right-clicking is has not been part of Apple's design for a long time. You can perform them using cmd + click or using two fingers on the trackpad (I believe it is disabled by default), but it's not as convenient - On a MacBook, the modifier keys (fn/control/option/command) are all placed next to each other and it's not always obvious which one does what. It's easy to get confused or to accidentally hit the wrong one. I've personally done option + click by mistake countless times, which opens a prompt to save the link, and it's always pretty frustrating - the right-click equivalent on touch screens (long press) is a bit clunky And this is coming from a tech-savvy user who actually knows about these options -- you'd be surprised at how many people don't. Of course, having the ability to make the decision is important for power users, but I can't help but wonder if for less sophisticated users the practice is not so bad after all. The usability studies I could find are pretty dated and I would not be surprised that usage patterns have changed.

city41 13y ago
Right clicking is a native part of MacOS now and has been for quite a while. Apple's own mice ship with right click enabled out of the box as do the trackpads (I believe you are incorrect that it is disabled by default. Even the demo machines at the Apple store have two fingers to right click enabled.). I agree with the post author. Please let me decide when to open a new window. This is further complicated that links can be configured to do just about anything with JS. Nothing more frustrating than not knowing what a seemingly inconsequential "help" link in a checkout process will do. Usually it pops open a new window or reveals a hidden div, but sometimes it navigates away and blows away the entire form you've filled out. Honestly the hyperlink as it stands now is a very poor UI construct due to rampant abuse.

randallsquared 13y ago

The problem is that due to javascript, bizarre behavior from browsers, and now the new HTML5 back functionality, a lot of us have been trained to avoid the back button for fear of what might happen; I religiously open in a new tab anyway unless I'm quite sure I'm completely done with a page, so the default of "open in a new tab" is totally fine with me.

SethMurphy 13y ago

I used to work on a site that served the medical profession (read large set of returning users with varied technical skill, but all fairly intelligent) and we had an icon next to non-html resources and links that were external. External links used target='_blank' which the site visitors surely learned quickly without having to Google it. I found this to be a fair compromise to keep users engaged on the site and be polite with your intentions. Most links were provided in the context and in support of the original page so keeping it open did not seem rude to me, but the proper UI. NOTE: This was a not-for-profit, so ROI was not a factor in the decision, only usability with possibly a little liability protection thrown in as an added bonus.

barrkel 13y ago

At this point, I middle-click pretty much all links, and then decide to close the window or not depending on whether I want to continue the session or not. Since I use tree-style tabs, nesting is effectively my navigation stack - except that it's a navigation tree, which also avoids the problem whereby you lose your "forward" stack if you go back and choose a different path. And for tabs that I want to return to after closing, I use undo tab close - with TabMixPlus, I have the last 10 closed tabs available for reopening. The combination of TabMixPlus and (especially) TreeStyleTabs are the reason I've never been able to take Chrome seriously.

esusatyo 13y ago
And those websites that don't honour middle-click or cmd-click to open in new tabs should die in hell. Looking at you, LinkedIn.

WiseWeasel 13y ago

I wish HN used target="_blank" for story links. I'm often reloading the HN front page, wasting everyone's network resources because I forgot to go back and closed the tab instead. Opening offsite links in a new tab should be the norm for most sites, with few exceptions. Bloggers probably shouldn't open links in new tabs, because I'm rarely following multiple links from a single blog, but directories and news listing sites absolutely should. In addition to sites where following an offsite link might interrupt my session in an annoying manner (his first case), if there's a high likelihood I'll want to navigate to multiple links from a single page, then they should open in a new tab. Temporary digressions like contextual help text should probably get loaded into a hidden div and use JS to display/hide rather than open in a new tab.

EmmEff 13y ago

I didn't read the article. I am getting tired of Marco.

jeffehobbs 13y ago

Disagree, with an if/else: When the site is a set of links aggregated (Twitter, FB, Hacker News) I would prefer that the link open a new tab. When it's a blog or a news site or anything else, the link should just be a link.

snowwrestler 13y ago

Marco is right that the argument should have ended long ago. But he's 180 degress wrong about how it should have ended, at least based on the usability testing I have done or overseen. A link in the middle of a sentence interrupts any mental session in progress. The 7th word in his post is a link...does he really think that anyone intends to click that click and never return to his site? To at least finish the sentence? I guarantee that if he sat and watched 100 of his readers click that link, all 100 would use a contextual menu (e.g. right click) or chord (Ctrl-click) to open that link in a new window. I could understand the argument against target=_blank back in the good ol' days of IE6 on XP, when browsers were not tabbed and OS's were not good at managing tons of windows. Back then creating new windows all over the place was annoying. Those days are gone. With tabs and window management UI (like Expose), it is now no trouble at all for anyone to manage dozens of open web sessions at once. Adding one more is far more lightweight than whisking your readers away suddenly in the middle of a sentence.

cookingrobot 13y ago

There's an easy UI fix for this. Clicking back should close the tab. Anyone want to build this Chrome add-on for me?

threepipeproblm 13y ago

I agree that the Web is regressing on this as certain players have consolidated players and decided they can get away with it... I think all the Gawker blogs de-evolved some time ago.

arunitc 13y ago

No it makes a lot of sense in a number of situations today especially with ajax and dynamically updating web pages. I have a web application where users navigate to, lets say, invoices through a tree structure of Accounts -> Packages -> Invoices. Clicking on edit of the Invoice opens a new webpage. If they click the back button, users see the list of accounts all collapsed and will have to perform search, and navigate down again to the account. In this instance users have specifically asked me to open the edits in a new window. In a few cases, I have edits open in the same tab as a popup, but in a number of instances that is not possible for pages with a lot of functionality/fields.

biscotti 13y ago

This functionality needs to be preserved so certain applications can follow efficient workflows. An example of this can be found in a django admin site where a new modal is launched to enter a foreign key relationship, this would be unwieldy & distracting if it were to open in a new tab, taking the user away from information that may help them in making a choice and disrupting their flow.