> > and even fewer know that they can click it to open a new window/tab. > > And they, I suspect, would be the people least able to handle > a new window spawned by the webpage. The back button is one > of the first things people learn about browsers. > I don't agree with that. One of my favourite stats is that 30% of browser activity involves using the Back button AND that 30% of users have no idea what the Back button is or does. I find this representative of the issues we're dealing with - the inherent contradictions of user behaviour.
FWIW, I watched one user testing session last year involving 14 people over 5 days. 10 people seemed convinced that pressing Escape would take them back one page. When told that the Back button would do that for them, 8 of them kept trying to use the Escape key. While I respect the views of people on this list as to not wanting to be told what to do when browsing, I feel many users need and want guidance in lieu of having been taught how to use a browser. Think about things like refreshing a page in the various browsers - it can be hard to work it out intuitively. That doesn't actually advance the new window/current window argument, I know. But I guess that's the point - I don't think there is an absolute answer. Ricky ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
