Posted by Toby Inkster on 05/07/06 18:17

Jaxtraw wrote:

> What it comes down to- if you have an external link on your site and you're
> keen to hang onto the person clicking it, do a target="_blank"

OK, so you've done that; now the user comes along, clicks on your link and
decides she doesn't like the page that you linked to, so she wants to go
back to your site. She clicks the "Back" button on her browser tool bar:
nothing happens. She clicks it again: still nothing. She is confused, but
still hasn't found what she was looking for, so clicks on the "Home"
button on the toolbar to get to Yahoo search. She searches; she finds your
competitor.

"(...) some people can use Windows applications for years without
understanding the concept of task switching. (When I point to the task
bar and ask them what it's for, they can't tell me.) (...) spawning
second browser windows can completely throw users off track because it
removes the one thing they are sure how to use: the 'Back' button.(...)
In another recent study, six out of 17 users had difficulty with
multiple windows, and three of them required assistance to get back to
the first window and continue the task.
Carolyn Snyder, Seven tricks that Web users don't know: 7. Second
browser windows, June 2001
http://www.snyderconsulting.net/article_7tricks.htm#7

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact

[Back to original message]