I suppose this might seem blindingly obvious, but ...
In the early days of the web, the convention was that if there was a bit of text that was interesting, you'd link that text to another page that gave further details. This way, a document could remain brief, but still contain a wealth of material.
Soon, an annoying practice started up. Instead of merely linking the phrase, they'd insert into their paragraph the phrase "Click Here for more information. This was aggravating, because if you just wanted to read the synopsis, you'd be interrupted every 6 words by the phrase "Click Here". This was particularly irritating if you weren't using a graphical browser, and so you were not clicking at all. Grr.
Well, it appears that the "Click Here" people have won. While there are a few very geek websites that still practice the Old Way, the vast majority of websites tell you to "Click Here", as though you don't actually know how to use a browser.
Another irritating trend started up about the time that businesses started getting web sites. Whereas before that time, the purpose of a web site was to link to other web sites, when businesses started their web sites, they started to spread the wisdom that offsite links were BAD, because they took your audience elsewhere. Or, worse yet, that you should open these links in a new window or warn your audience that links to other sites were not endorsed, and probably not worthwhile visiting.
These days, it seems that most websites are closed systems. They have links to other pages within their own website, but you can't get here from there.
Interestingly, it's the websites that *do* link elsewhere that are the busiest. Google, Slashdot, and Yahoo are good examples of this, but, of course, there are others. These are the sites that you keep going back to, precisely because they link to other sites.
Anyways, I'm sure that this isn't news to anybody, but it was an interesting observation to me. And that's what reall matters.
You are all wrong. It is all about usability. That is the arrogant part of you speaking, but if you happen to see older people not using internet 20h a day, they do need a 'click here'.
Posted by: on March 7, 2004 08:20 AMI don't think that having links open in new windows is such a bad idea. In fact, I would prefer that Google do just this, because it irritates me having to click back several times to get back to my search results. I like Mozilla, though, because I can open in new tabs instead of whole new windows.
Posted by: Ben Ramsey on March 7, 2004 07:34 PMIf you want links to open in a new window, then right-click on the link and select "open in new window". That's what that feature is there for.
As to older people needing "click here" for links, I just don't buy that. People can learn. It's a fundamental fact about people. They can learn "when I click on the blue text things happen" just as easily as they can learn to use the mouse in the first place. They only need "click here" because bad designers have taught them that they need that.
You use the web by clicking on things. People understand this, or they don't use the web. Redundancy in user interface is irritation when it detracts from textual clarity. And the web is, after all, primarily an information source.
Posted by: DrBacchus on March 8, 2004 07:25 AMWhile I do hate new windows, I wish there was a way for the HTML programmer (or in the options) that rather than open a new window, in browsers that have the capability , open a new tab. This would make internet browsing far more efficent.
NeoThermic
Links I wanted to post in relation to the above:
http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/default.jsp
http://www.opera.com/
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
http://www.mozilla.org/products/mozilla1.x/
http://www.mozilla.org/products/camino/