Joyce Evans wrote: > I always thought it was a good idea to open links to other websites > in a separate window, so you don't lose the visitor. [...]
I think that the weight of public opinion has been steadily turning against this view over the past 10 years or so. I would be interested in knowing if there is any current research that supports the theory that opening links in new windows will somehow keep visitors interested in your site longer. Sure it may keep them *stuck* there longer, but does that keep them *interested*? My impression is that in 2007 the reverse is true. There is certainly a considerable amount of anecdotal evidence that suggests that for a certain percentage of web users, nothing infuriates them more than forcing causing a new window to pop-up unexpectedly when you click on a link. I personally now use a JavaScript snippet to strip all target="_blank" entries from the DOM before rendering pages are rendered in my browser. >From a web standards perspective, the argument against opening links in new windows dates back to the very first W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (1999), if not before: Guideline 10.1 Until user agents allow users to turn off spawned windows, do not cause pop-ups or other windows to appear and do not change the current window without informing the user. [Priority 2] http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/#gl-interim-accessibility See also, the WCAG "Techniques" document notes for 10.5: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-HTML-TECHS/#no-new-windows Lastly, if one really must spawn new windows with certain links, then I quite like the method suggested by Bill Posters (note that this is apparently still a Work In Progress): http://test.newplasticarts.co.uk/dom-js/flag-toggle-external-links/ Phil. ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
