BUToW: Rearranging Furniture
Summary: Be sure you have a good reason before creating links on your blog that open new browser windows.
OK, let's pretend I'm a traveling salesman and you're the farmer's daughter. No, wait...that's another allegory altogether. Let's say that I'm a door-to-door salesman and you're a homeowner. I've got some intriguing merchandise so you invite me in.
Suppose, then, that while you're looking at my product line, out of the corner of your eye you see me rearranging your furniture. Then, I whip out a cordless screwdriver and start replacing the hammered brass faceplates on the electrical outlets in your stylish Southwestern-themed room with a nice gingham plaid number. You'd be pretty ticked-off, wouldn't you? You probably wouldn't care to have me stop by again, regardless of how cool my stuff looks.
This is an overdramatization, but it still touches on a couple of issues related to blogging. The primary issue is that of creating links that open by default in new browser windows. If you think of your computer desktop as your home, you probably don't like the idea of a website telling you what it should contain. But, isn't that what a blog is doing when it causes new windows to open in response to your clicking on a link?
In effect, your reader has invited you (via your blog) into her home (her computer desktop). Certain standards of propriety are expected (like, no rearranging of the furniture). If you violate those standards, you might not be invited back.
Why is this a big deal? Besides the principle of desktop sanctity, consider these issues:
- The creation of multiple windows can be confusing to navigate, especially to some disabled users of assistive technology.
- Depending on how you accomplish it, the new window may not contain URL information that tells the reader where he is.
- Your reader probably has her own preferred method of navigating links. For example, on some sites I prefer links to open in new windows, but in others I prefer them to open in new tabs...and in others, I just want to use the current window to view the new link. I'm old enough to make those decisions for myself.
- The code necessary to open a new window takes up bandwidth. It's not much for a single link, but consider the blogroll with 150 links, each of which has that extra coding. It adds up.
- And, last but not least, if you've been using the
targetattribute of the<a>tag to open new windows, you need to understand that this approach is no longer supported by the HTML 4.0 Strict and XHTML 1.0 Strict recommendations of the W3C. The code will validate under Transitional rules, but it's just a matter of time before browsers stop supporting it (well, if browsers behave like they're supposed to... which is a whole other topic).
I challenge you to think about why you want to open new windows anyway. Is it because you believe that your reader won't return to your blog once they "escape"? Is it because you want to improve your SiteMeter "stickiness" statistics, running the meter on your page while your reader is actually off consuming content elsewhere? If either of these describe your motivations, I respectfully suggest that you may have deeper needs than BUToW can address. (I'm not even sure that you're accomplishing the latter, depending on how SiteMeter measures "Average Visit Length.")
Now. If, in the face of such overwhelming evidence to the contrary, you continue to believe that your links should open in a new window, at least do your reader the favor of announcing how you handle those links. Put a notice in a prominent place: "Links open in new windows." Put that same notice in the title attribute of the href tag. That way, your reader can know upfront whether he needs to override your site's attempt to jack with his desktop.
In closing, you may be wondering, "what's up with the faceplate thing in the lame metaphor above?" Well, actually, that touches on a related issue that was raised by one of the Gazette's esteemed readers, who pointed out the annoying (to her) habit that some blogs have of playing with your cursor, causing it to change into unnatural and unexpected shapes. Does it do any harm (other than possibly crashing your machine if the underlying script isn't palatable to your OS)? Not really, but it's another example of violating the sanctity of your reader's home. And you thought it was just a cool effect.
In the end, regardless of what you do with your links, if you have compelling content, you'll still have the readers. But why introduce any difficulty or potential aggravation, when you can avoid it so easily?
Ahh...but I don't think your make-believe example is, um, realistic! ;-)
Your blog is your home only as long as it's on YOUR desktop. When it moves onto mine, that metaphor ceases to be relevant.
Perhaps it is anal to dwell on these things... usability falls into that category generally anyway, except in the most egregious violations. It's the cumulative trend that counts.
But in the end, it's the user...the reader... who decides whether he or she will tolerate the behavior your blog imposes on his or her computer. Perhaps it's just a matter of degree; if your site crashed my computer every time I visited it, you might get two chances, but that's all. (And there are sites that do just that.) All I'm pointing out is that there are some folks to whom the opening of new windows on their computers is trending perilously close to being unacceptable behavior.
Of course, it's your business if you don't care whether they return or not.
Posted by: Eric at July 14, 2003 10:14 PMI agree with you generally about your emphasis on useability, I am just interested in your thoughts that this would be such a big issue. Now, if this is about causing your computer to crash, I have the same issue as you do, but for me the primary criminals in this regard are those with intricate and high resolution background images because it makes my particular antiquated system curl up and die.
We use the opening new windows code for our blogroll and nothing else. Reason being is that we prefer that for the blogroll and nothing else, and we use our blogroll much more than others do.
So now, should I plunge myself into a paroxysm of despair because of my guilt over this issue, or should I just say to myself "eric is being anal"?
It might be a simplistic response on my part, but it means I can justify not recoding my blogroll...
Posted by: dan at July 15, 2003 03:08 AMDan, I'm not trying to be dogmatic with these "tips." In fact, the very name itself should imply that these are things to consider, not rules to be followed...or else. I'd like for people to make informed decisions about things that they might have never actually considered in detail. The fact that I seem to be taking sides on an issue is often just a way to stimulate discussion (like this!).
Your specific usage -- blogroll only -- is least likely to cause heartburn in any visitors, because I suspect most of them have their own blogrolls that they use in similar fashion. OTOH, it is really easy to right-click (or control-click for Macs with single button mice) on any link to open in a new window...or in a new tab, so I still contend the extra coding is unnecessary.
In the end, I would never suggest that you have to recode your links, and I certainly hope you are not spasming in despair! We have much larger fish to fry, don't we?
Posted by: Eric at July 15, 2003 06:36 AMThank you for taking the time to answer my spurious comments. I have clearly had too much time on my hands over the last week or so.
Posted by: dan at July 15, 2003 08:07 PMAbout the publisher
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Now, for the counter argument. How would you like it if someone came into your home and then started complaining about the ways that your furniture was arranged or the insistence that you go outside to smoke your silly cigarette?
The response is, quite simply, "well, within reason I don't care whether you like the way that my furniture is arranged, because this is primarily for my benefit and useability, not yours".
(Don't you hate people answering make-believe examples with other make-believe examples until the metaphor becomes increasingly strained?)
So yes, I agree that this can be annoying in certain contexts, but are you (as the reader) not being just a little anal about this?
Posted by: dan at July 14, 2003 09:18 PM