420 Design Blog
Don’t open a new window!
17 Oct 2007 | Angie H
In the past 4-5 months we've worked on a number of web projects that we're quite proud of. During that time we had no fewer than 3 requests to make a link open a new browser window. While it's not as common a request as it used to be, it still happens and each time we have to let our clients know why this is not a good thing.
The short answer is that it's bad for usability. You see, a lot of people still use the "back" button to navigate through websites. Even web savvy people, including myself. Opening a new browser window not only is annoying (especially if you resize it and take away my ability to resize it or use any of the other built-in functionality), but it completely breaks the back button.
Picture it... you're happily browsing a website and click on a link. Unbeknownst to you, it opens a new window. You finish scanning the page and decide you want to go back only to find that the back button is greyed out and therefore doesn't work. For novices (like my dear mom) this could easily equal 5-10 minutes of frustration and confusion - the antithesis of a user-friendly site. And for us web pros, we groan and wonder why the hell your web designer did that.
By "breaking" the back button you're removing control from the user and rendering the user experience frustrating at best. Not exactly the emotion you want your site (or brand for that matter) to be associated with. One of the great things about the Web is that we, as users, have so much control over what we want to read and see. Opening a new window just plain screws everything up.