Opening New Browser Windows is Still Bad

Posted by: Carl Smith on Tuesday July 25, 2006

I know the boys around here will get sick of me spouting out new findings from Jakob Nielsen’s book Prioritizing Web Usability, but I have to do it!

A few weeks back we had a client that wanted to open a new window to display content.

We explained this led to all kinds of usability issues and they really needed to rethink that request.

Eventually we convinced them, in no small part to Jakob’s findings.

Here is a refresher list straight out of the book on why opening new windows is bad:

It disrupts the expected user experience
It pollutes the user’s screen with unwanted objects (sometimes causing crashes or memory errors)
It hampers the users ability to return to visited pages
It obscures the window the user is currently working on
It can make users believe that links are inactive because they appear to have no effect, when in fact the information is rendered in an obscured window

If you are a designer or developer, please get this book and help make the World Wide Web a safer place for all humanity.

nGen Works