Carolyn Diaz wrote:
My Web team and I are discussing whether or not we should open links to PDFs and other non-html pages in a new window. Someone cited Jakob Nielsen's argument at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/open_new_windows.html as the reason we should open in a new window. (We all work on government Web sites and they are about to release a new set of linking standards.)
While Jakob is often right about usability issues, he is absolutely wrong about this. His advise is based on an extremely limited understanding and faulty assumptions about the way PDFs work on many systems.
While the problems he cites have been well known issues with old versions of Adobe Acrobat, due to its slowness and defaulting to opening within the browser window in some browsers, that is not the case with all PDF viewers and browsers.
Depending on the combination of browser, PDF viewer, and the user's preferences, some open within the same browser window by default, others launch the PDF viewer in a separate tab by default and others launch the PDF viewer as a separate application. If you attempt to force a new window, the many people in the latter case (especially Opera and Firefox users on Mac, for example) will end up with a new blank tab while the PDF opens in the PDF viewer.
The best way to deal with the situation is to clearly label the link as being PDF and let the user decide how they wish to proceed.
-- Lachlan Hunt - Opera Software http://lachy.id.au/ http://www.opera.com/ ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *******************************************************************
